


Built On Bones

by Siamesa



Series: Wrong Side of the Lee [2]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe - Rhaegar won, Belligerent Sexual Tension, Canon-Typical Violence, Characters Added As They Appear - Freeform, Multi, Murder Mystery, Poisoning, Politics, Sibling Bonding, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-14
Updated: 2018-07-01
Packaged: 2018-08-15 01:51:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 20,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8037550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siamesa/pseuds/Siamesa
Summary: After Prince Jon fled to the Wall, his father began a desperate search in Essos.  When he returned, he had a new Queen by his side, the location of his son... and a kingdom wracked with political instability.  When Rhaegar rides North, his three Queens are left to try to hold Westeros together... and deal not only with squabbling nobles, starving smallfolk, and an enraged Faith, but with something even closer to home. A string of poisonings hits the Red Keep, and an unlikely collection of detectives must stop them before the chaos around the Iron Throne becomes too great to control.





	1. Prologue

Elia looked out over the Godswood, searching for circling hawks.

It was the best way to find Lyanna, when she was in one of these moods.  When she was younger (and she’d been so much younger, a motherless child, and Elia had hated her all the more), she would stalk through the castle, releasing ravens and pigeons and doves, anything she’d found with wings in a cage.  They’d always circle back, and as they did Lyanna’s anger would fall away, reducing her to something small and helpless.  In those moments, Lyanna Stark would cry.

They were the only moments.

Rhaegar had always tried to comfort her, in the first years, because Rhaegar could be the greatest fool of a clever man in Westeros.  Lyanna needed no salt in her wounds.

Things have changed.  If Elia could go back, could tell a princess biting back humiliation and fear _in sixteen years, you will love that girl better than your husband –_ well.  Even Rhaegar ought to have had trouble seeing any happiness come of what he had done.  But now Rhaegar rode North, on a fool’s errand after a fool boy, and Elia remained, to pick up his pieces as she always had.

A speck dove, black against the sky.  Elia marked the direction, and turned to the tower stairs.

-

The _complication_ met her halfway down.

The red woman inclined her head. “Your Grace.”  She did not move out of the way.

Elia bowed her own head stiffly in response.  A flicker of white at the bottom of the stairs was either Ser Arthur or Ser Jaime; no one who needed to be convinced that Rhaegar’s three Queens were in accord.

“The Lady Lyanna.”  It was neither a question nor a statement.  Melisandre’s red eyes were as inpenetrable as ever.  Elia could read her no better now than she could when Rhaegar had returned from Essos with his latest poor decision by his side.

Her husband was easy to hate in his absence.  Elia knew the desperation that drove him to Melisandre, had known it every time Aegon lay coughing in his bed.  But turning to a stranger’s god is one thing, and crowning that stranger quite another.

“ _Queen_ Lyanna,” and Elia was suddenly on the defensive, “is otherwise occupied.”

“She worries for her son.” Long fingers stroked against the wall.  “And you worry for her.  As do I.  She fell ill so… suddenly.”  The red woman leant forward, her face now inches from Elia’s own.

The worst of it is that her words hit home.  Lyanna had intended to follow Rhaegar after Jon.  She’d fallen ill that very night, and Rhaegar hadn’t waited. 

“As sudden as did your Prince.”

Elia flinched.  Her heel hit the stair behind her with a crack, and Melisandre caught her as she stumbled.

Poison.  There were whispers of it every time Aegon fell ill.  If – gods forbid – he were taken from her, the mob would hang Lyanna from a tower.

“What are you suggesting?” she hissed, letting anger cover the pang of fear.  Melisandre remained unperturbed, her hands warm on Elia’s upper arms.  She leant forward, further, a whisper in her ear.

“The night is dark, and full of terrors.  Hate me if you wish, my queen.  But there is danger here, and it stalks us all.”

-

Lyanna sat beneath a spreading oak, hands tight around her knees.  She barely looked up as Elia approached her. 

Lyanna wore a plain dress, already a muddy lost cause.  Elia resigned her own silks to the same as she sat down in the dust beside her.  Lyanna’s back shook beneath her hand.

“Lya –”

At that the floodgates broke.  Lyanna flung her arms around Elia’s shoulders, pressing into her.  Elia rubbed her hands down Lyanna’s back as she might a spooked horse, soft and soothing, and the shaking stopped.

Lyanna raised her head, her gray eyes red but tearless.  “I should have married Robert Baratheon.”

Elia kept moving her hands.  “If you’re just realizing that now, I worry for you.”

 “Storms’ End.  The Red Keep.”  Lyanna laughed, sharp and broken.  “A cage for a cage.  No wonder Jon ran.”  At this her breathing began to slow, her back to stiffen.  “Do you think Rhaegar’s reached the Wall?”

The last year had been painful.  Jon had gone, and Rhaegar, too, scouring Essos for his lost son.  With the King gone, the Council had moved in, Tywin Lannister clashing with Jon Connington clashing with even Viserys.  Elia and Aegon had tried to keep the peace.  Lyanna, robbed of son and husband both, had tried to keep herself together.  And then Rhaegar had returned, and with him the Red Woman…

Lyanna _loved_ Rhaegar.  It was that, Elia knew, or hate him to the bone.

Elia kissed Lyanna’s forehead.  “The Neck, at least.  He’ll finally meet your Lord Howland.”

Lyanna leaned into her arms.  “If he can find him.”  Her smile was small and brittle, but it was, at least, a smile.

-

With Lyanna upright, Elia returned to Aegon’s bedside.  Heavy curtains blocked her path to the bed, and the room smelled of strange smoke.  When she pushed through the last of it, she almost missed the other woman in the room.

Almost.

Aegon was asleep.  Elia put her hand on his own, briefly, and turned to Melisandre.  “What have you done?”  She kept her voice even, almost calm.  Two could play at the Red Woman’s game.

“Heartsblood leaves,” Melisandre answered.  “To clear his throat.  You will find the coughing eases, and he sleeps.”  She swept one hand out to indicate a brazier.  A few bundles of dark leaves rested beside it.  “You may examine them, if you wish.  _I_ have no interest in poisoning your son.”

Elia’s grip on Aegon’s hand tightened, and he shifted in his sleep.  “You speak of poison again, then.  As though you know something the rest of us do not.  _Poison_.” It hurt to say it out loud, to bring it into the light.  _Not my son._ She had given him her own weak health, and she bore that burden.  Every cough and ague of his childhood, she’d known his fate was in the hands of the gods.  But this – treason, murder, shadows in the night.She met Melisandre’s burning eyes.  Her own were ice.  “You have no interest.  Then who does?”

Melisandre smiled, slow and strange.  Her hand rested on Elia’s, on Aegon’s.  “That, my queen, we must discover.” 

* * *

 

Jaime wasn’t sulking.

 _Tyrion_ was sulking, or at least drinking.  Jaime was determined to meet Lord Tywin’s arrival with all the dignity inherent in his white cloak.  His father though him enough of a child already.

His _father._ As if the man deserved the title, after what he had done to Cersei.  When Jaime looked at Lord Tywin these days, all he could see was Rhaegar, driving a blade through the Mad King’s throat.  His fingers twitched on his own swordhilt.

“Kneel for the Hand of the King!”

Jaime didn't follow the command.  Neither did Ser Barristan beside him, which took some of the air out of defiance.  Lord Tywin’s eyes swept over both of them.

 _Hand of the King._ He’d been Hand six times, now, during Rhaegar’s reign, resigning in protest thrice and at the King’s command twice more.  Rhaegar hadn’t named him to the post this time; eyeing the state of unrest, Queen Elia had _gently nudged_ Lord Connington aside as soon as the King’s dust had cleared. 

Indeed, a crowd of Septons were already pushing out of the kneeling ranks, babbling something about black brides and foreign gods.  Jaime watched as, one by one, they quailed beneath his father’s glare.  Even Queen Melisandre herself couldn’t silence them so quickly, though he’d watched more than once as she’d tried.

He’d sworn himself to Rhaegar on a dark and bloody night, vowed to follow him against all laws of god and man.  But even Lord Connington would admit that the King has made some very dangerous mistakes. 

The Red Woman was one of them.  Jaime wouldn’t deny it.  He’d returned from Essos with news of his lost son, and with the woman who’d given that news to him.  All well and good, until he offered her a crown.  Until she took it.  _Kingslayer, Kinslayer, Maegor the Cruel._ Insults washed off of Rhaegar, like rain on a smooth stone.  What mattered was idiot Prince Jon.

Jaime’d had a son once.  He could understand, he could –

He clenched his fists, and walked away.  He could not look at his father’s face.  Not when all he wanted, at this moment, was his father’s head.

He was summoned to dinner that evening by Queen Melisandre.  That had certainly never happened before, and he could see Lord Tywin’s fingers all over it even before he laid eyes on the man himself.  This was not one of the Queen’s dining chambers.  He’d been summoned to the Tower of the Hand.  Lord Tywin sat straight-backed at the familiar table, fists clenched.  The Queen herself stalked in just as Tywin turned towards Jaime.  It was perhaps the first time he was truly glad to see her.

“Your grace.”  Lord Tywin rose, and gave a perfectly correct bow.  His voice, however, was dark and flat with suspicion.  Jaime waited to see how the Red Woman would take it.

“My lord.”  She smiled, eyes gleaming, and took a seat.  Her gown was diaphanous, with a ruby set just above her breastbone and a long stretch of bare skin beneath it.  _If she thinks this will distract Lord Tywin,_ thought Jaime to himself, _she’s made quite the error._

Two servants in red lingered behind the Queen, their faces veiled.  He knew that Elia had suggested – and Rhaenys come close to ordering – that the Red Woman at least have Westerosi maids. 

Or perhaps those suggestions had taken root.  The dishes were served by men in Targaryen livery, and Jaime even recognized one as Watt, his brother’s favorite source for very strong, very unpleasant drinks.

They ate sparingly.  The discussion was dull, and the Red Woman not entirely … present.  She seemed to find the fire in the hearth to be of far more interest than the Hand of the King.  Thankfully, all Jaime had to do was stand at attention, and he’d picked a spot where, to talk to him, Lord Tywin would have to turn his back on the Queen.

Finally, servants removed the picked-over plates.  Lord Tywin gestured towards a chilled decanter of Dornish Red, and the man at his shoulder moved in to pour.

The Queen stood.  Her arm flashed out, too quick, like a striking snake, and knocked the decanter back, and the servant with it.

She’d caught Tywin off balance, and Jaime knew how his father would respond to that.  Green eyes met red over Lord Tywin’s goblet, filled with a finger’s worth of wine. 

Figures in red moved in, gathering up the decanter, tugging the unfortunate servant to his feet.

A long, pale hand wrapped itself around the goblet.  “Poison,” said Melisandre.  She lifted the drink to her lips.  Even Lord Tywin stood stock-still, now, his narrowing eyes the only proof he wasn’t bespelled. 

The Red Woman swallowed.  Jaime watched her throat move, watched the ruby on her breast brighten and glow until it was nothing but flame.

She placed the goblet heavily back on the table, in front of Lord Tywin.  “Strangler, I think.  Amethysts and serpents.  It would not have been a pleasant death, my Lord of Lannister.”

And then he’d watched her smile.

-

“You actually had it tested, I assume?”  Tyrion leans back in his chair.  “Surely our _dear_ father wouldn’t take something like that on the word of a woman from Asshai.”

“Pycelle confirmed it.”  Jaime clenched his fists.  That he, in his heart of hearts, wanted to see his father dead did not mean he wanted to see Tywin Lannister, Lord of Casterley Rock and Hand of the King, fall to the weapon of women and traitors. 

“Poison?”

Jaime suddenly realized that there was a third person in the room, an unfamiliar man.

“This matter is currently under investigation by the Kingsguard.  There’s nothing to worry about.”  It’s always easier when he knows the response by rote.

The man nodded, and lowered his head.  He was sharpening a dagger, but if Tyrion didn’t find him a threat, Jaime was inclined to let him go about his business.

The door at the far side of the room opened, revealing Ser Arthur, and behind him Queen Elia.  Jaime’s Queen.  Lyanna Stark was none of the terrible things the smallfolk tried to paint her, and Melisandre had a grand future ahead of her as the palace food taster if nothing else, but Elia was a Queen.  Elia was the Mother made flesh, loving and enduring, a heart of roses and a spine of steel.  Squires joked that he was in love with her, and he let them. 

“Brienne!” called Elia, and the knife-sharpener stood.

_Brienne?_

And he saw something now, too, in the way “Brienne” stood, the way she moved.  A woman.

Suddenly, Jaime knew exactly why she was here.

“Queen Lyanna seeks your company at the archery butts.”

Brienne’s face lit up in a smile.  “Of course, your grace!”  She nearly stumbled in her enthusiasm.  Jaime watched her with narrowed eyes.  She’d barely shut the door before he turned on Queen Elia.

“You thought it would help to get her a _pet?”_   A toy warrior woman, a doll, to spar with until the next crises hits.  A stable full of horses, a Nothern castle of her own, all these things might help Queen Lyanna.  Her son, returned to her alive.  Rhaegar’s death, though it stabbed at Jaime just to think it.

“Jaime!”  Tyrion kicked his ankle, hard.  He jerked his head up.

The door hadn’t latched.

He couldn’t tell if Brienne was still behind it, couldn’t tell what she’d heard.  He couldn’t tell why he _cared._ Better to know the truth now than to be strung along for months, then dropped by the side of the road.

Elia held his eyes, her own soft with disappointment, until Jaime dropped his head with a groan.

* * *

 

“So we are agreed.”  Melisandre looked around the darkened room.  “A poisoner stalks among us.”

Lord Lannister had not thanked her. He likely still thought the poison goblet her doing, a trick.  But he nodded along as she spoke. 

“My son,” said Elia.  “My sister wife.”  She laid her hand on Lyanna’s.  “And now our Hand.”

“You say you have proof,” said Lyanna, sharply.  Lord Lannister jerked his head in agreement – quite a shock for him, then, the lion laid down with the usurping wolf. 

“I have Seen it in the flames.”  She knew it would not convince them, but it was the truth.  “Good Maester Pycelle has seen it in his little vials and powders.  But as for the rest… I believe that is why we are gathered tonight.”


	2. Tyrion I

The Red Keep was disturbingly empty these days.

When Tyrion had first come to serve as cupbearer to the new King, the Silver Prince who had become Rhaegar Kinslayer, the halls had been filled with highborn children.  Most of them hostages, of course.  Half the Riverlands had sent children, and more than half the Vale, poor young Royces and Corbrays riding into the city to be greeted by Lord Arryn’s skull.  The crowd from the Stormlands had clustered around the other new cupbearer, little Lord Renly, hostage for the good behavior of his bannermen and a sop to send his surviving brother quietly to the Wall.  Tyrion, son of a loyal Lord, had walked with his nose in the air for the first time in his life.

He could remember few Northern hostages.  Lyanna, Tyrion knew now, had served that purpose well enough.  Rhaegar might as well have left her in that Dornish tower; she’d have had the same amount of freedom, there, and likely better scenery.

But now…

There were no feasts, not even to welcome the Hand of the King.  There were huddled clumps of men debating taxation and poor harvests and the Religious Question.  And there were no _strangers,_ save for perhaps the third Queen.  Elia, Lyanna, Aegon, Rhaenys, Viserys – the royal family, and their retinue.  Even Princess Daenerys, who Tyrion rather liked, had ridden off weeks ago to camp out at Summerhall and “enjoy the first breath of autumn.” 

_That_ was a lie, but when he’d tried to dig further, she’d begun to imitate her brother’s voice and babbled on about dreams.

Tyrion could count the missing lords.  It wasn’t a good list.  It was a worrying one.

“Renly,” he said to Princess Rhaenys, as she handed him another book.  “And not a peep from Storm’s End.  Edmure Tully.  The _entirety_ of House Tyrell.  I thought they were angling quite well for Daenerys and Willas and then – nothing.”

She nodded, and looked over at the stack beside her.  Half of Rhaenys’ chamber was dedicated to a library, more in stacks than shelves.  It was organized by a mathematical method which existed only in the Princess’ head. Tyrion thusly preferred to have books handed to him even when he could reach them – it spared him the consequences of disturbing the system.  No one who misplaced a book in Rhaenys’ library would ever doubt that the Princess was blood of the dragon.

“Viserys would never have allowed it,” Rhaenys said.  _Allowed it – oh.  Daenerys._

“Rhaegar wouldn’t have let him – ”  He stopped, at the look on her face.

“ _King Rhaegar,_ ” she began (Tyrion nodded his head in apology) “wasn’t here.  Hasn’t _been_ here.  My lord father sought my brother on the wrong side of the world, on the base of a _lie,_ and came home bespelled by some foreign – ”  Her face darkened.  Tyrion put a hand on her arm.  “He hasn’t been here.  He doesn’t know.  About the lords, about my uncle, about any of this.  _He doesn’t know._ ”

She took in a steadying breath.  “That’s why we’re doing this, Tyrion.  If there’s a plot behind his back, we need to find it.  If there’s whispering, we need to make it stop.  And if there’s something only I can do – I will.”  Her hand lingered, now, on the book, on the words _Renly Baratheon._

Tyrion, now, needed a long breath to stay steady.  “You’ll get more from Edmure Tully, I think.”

“This isn’t about what we’ll do in _bed_.  This is about alliances.  About _breaking_ alliances.”

Tyrion cocked his head.  “About _hostages._ ”

Rhaenys’ eyes were darker, now, than ever.  “If necessary.”

-

His Princess’ command set him about his rounds.  He has little enough to do here these days, but that’s a problem he’s been trying to solve since he outgrew cupbearing and wasn’t cruel enough to ask Jaime to take him on as a squire.  He’s tried to put himself into the business of _information,_ but that niche is pretty well filled, and by dangerous people.

Still, if the Spider was Master of Whisperers for the King, then Tyrion Lannister played the role for his daughter.  Rhaenys had always had _plans,_ charts of marriages, feast records, and stolen logbooks.  She’d have made a decent king herself, if you wouldn’t mind the bloody civil war.  Tyrion had been pulled into her orbit years ago, when his brother was out following the King on progress.

It was pity, he knew, or had been at the beginning.  It had stung, but it had given him something to do.  Some way that he could feel important.

The rest of the time, he drank. 

Tyrion allowed himself a small smile as he pushed open a heavy door.  _It’s so fortunate when the two come together like this._  

“Imp!”

Ser Brendan Gracefield raised a mug.  Younger son of a younger son, but still with too much of a family name to deign to trot around as a hedge knight.  His business, instead, was feasts.  Not a gathering in the Reach lacked for Ser Brendan, crumbs in his beard and ale in his hand.

“Ser Brendan!”  Tyrion ignored his “affectionate” nickname, and hoisted himself up onto a chair beside him.  “What brings you to King’s Landing?”

Ser Brendan laughed, and waved his mug again, sending ale  – no, wine, from the taste – splashing all over Tyrion.  Tyrion ground his jaw, licked his lips, and smiled.  “Another for me, if you please!” 

The room’s only servant departed, and Tyrion leant in closer.  “I hear you were at Storm’s End for the first harvest.”

“Was I!”  Ser Brendan laughed, and this time Tyrion managed to dodge.  “They had pigs – boars – the size of this table.  Beside them, we all looked like – like you!”

Tyrion dutifully laughed.  “And was Lord Renly generous with his wine?”

“ _Arbor_ wine, it was!  Arbor wine straight from the Reach, just like they grow it back home.”  Ser Brendan’s eyes softened, and Tyrion tried to steer him away.  Reach wine, reach guests – useful, but he had no desire to hear for the seventh time about Ser Brendan’s conflicts with his uncle.

“You should have seen the way those Northmen looked at it!  One spat it up!”  Another laugh, another dodge, but suddenly Ser Brendan was proving very useful indeed.

“Lord Stark crossed the Neck?  I thought he’d be like to melt.”

Lord Stark would never cross the Neck.  Lord Stark and his bad leg, his pardon won with his sister’s tears – he’d done nothing for sixteen years but sit in Winterfell and father children on his wife.  _Which lords, then_?

“Oh, no, not the old Wolf.  The young one, the skinny one – Benjen.  That was it.  The Queen’s own brother!  And his retinue in furs.  It’s no wonder they haven’t shown their faces in court.”  Ser Brendan suddenly looked up at Tyrion, eyes narrowed.  The man no doubt thought this expression the very _face_ of cunning, and Tyrion had grown to know it well. “…Haven’t they?”  The lowered voice, and that’s familiar too. 

“Oh, no,” said Tyrion, drawing back.  “Not that I’ve seen.  Still, maybe they’ll feast our wayward Prince’s return.”

“He’s returning, then?”

“King Rhaegar is seeing to it personally.”

Ser Brenden’s eyes darkened, and he put a hand on Tyrion’s chair.  “Only,” he said, leaning in close, “they said that Rhaegar was the one who killed him.”

“Who said – ”

“Your wine, my lord.”  The servant bustled back in.  “A Dornish red, I believe?”

Ser Brendan raised a finger to his lips, and made a game attempt at skulking away, though he tripped over a chairleg halfway to the door.

Tyrion sighed, and swallowed the wine in one gulp.

-

Balerion met him as he left the room.

More accurately, Balerion met his ankles, and sent Tyrion tumbling while trying not to land on a pile of hisses and claws.  When he finally came to a stop, flat on his back, the cat settled in on his stomach.

“I can’t breathe, beast.”

Balerion ignored him.  Tyrion and the beast had shared a unique relationship since long before Tyrion had befriended Rhaenys.  Tyrion’s first day in the palace, in fact, a light had clearly gone on in the blasted creature’s mind.  _Here_ was a child small enough for a large cat to knock over with minimal effort.  _Here_ was _prey._

“We are in a public corridor!”  He knew it could understand him.  Those weren’t the eyes of a dumb beast.

Balerion unsheathed inch-long claws, and began to purr, tearing bits out of Tyrion’s doublet.  He tried to plan a way out of this with both his dignity and his skin intact.  “I need to talk to Rhaenys.  _Rhaenys?_   You live with her?”

Footsteps, and he was suddenly hit with the realization that he was lying in a hallway, talking to a cat.  “Damn it, beast!  Move!”  He could roll away, but it was going to _hurt._

“Ah, Lord Tyrion.”

Balerion growled, but shifted his weight enough that Tyrion was finally able to break loose, leaving strands of embroidery and more than a bit of flesh and blood in the beast’s grasp.

“Varys,” he managed.  The eunuch helped him to his feet, though Tyrion took the soft hand only begrudgingly.  _What are you doing here?_

It was a dangerous game that he played, and Tyrion knew it.  There were too many other players, and none of them but him would hesitate to kill some idiot lording fooling around in their domain.   He could be dead tomorrow, poisoned like his father.  He could be dead _now,_ found in a ditch somewhere with ravens eating out his eyes.  By law, he was Lord Tywin’s son, even heir to Casterly Rock.  In practice, well, his brother’s words came back him: “ _You thought it would help to get her a pet?”_ Brienne of Tarth, Tyrion of Casterly Rock.  No difference but the mistress they amuse.

But he wouldn’t go down without a fight.  He gave Varys his best smile, the one he knew set his mismatched eyes bulging.  “What brings you here?”

Varys lowered his eyes.  “The same as you, I suspect.  Fools and their wine. There are deeper threats in Westeros, Lord Tyrion.”

Tyrion pulled back his hand, shaking his head, and decided to go for broke.  “You only ever seek me out when you’ve got something important to say.”

Varys tittered.  “Something to _show_ you, in this case.”  He took Tyrion’s hand again, and pulled back as quickly as he’d come.  He was a vanishing twirl of silk and scent before Tyrion had finished reading the paper left in his palm.

_The Hour of the Wolf.  The fifth garden._

The ink ran in the sweat of his palm, until the paper was an illegible blob of gray.  He tossed it into the nearest fireplace anyway.

This was a dangerous game, and it gave him life.

-

His next excursion was less pleasant still.  Tyrion Lannister had been summoned to see his lord father.

_King Rhaegar_ obeyed Tywin Lannister’s summons.  Even Jaime, whose fingers twitched on his sworldhilt every time he saw their father, rarely disobeyed him.  Tyrion, who relied on his father to keep him in gold, and therefore in ale, women, and helpful contacts, bit his tongue, clenched his fists, and walked to the Tower of the Hand.

He waited outside the solar for twenty slowly creeping minutes.  He could hear raised voices, but not words.  Still, he was none too surprise to see Jaime slam open the door, face red and twisted.  Tyrion raised a hand in brief salute, and Jaime unclenched his fists long enough to acknowledge it.

Tyrion watched his brother disappear down the staircase, then squared his shoulders and marched into the lion’s den.

“My lord father?”

“Don’t sit.”  Tywin loomed over the desk.  “Come here.”

Tyrion followed.  It had been much worse at Casterly Rock.  Now, safe in the Red Keep, he could be the Lannister sibling who hated their father the least – and wasn’t that something?  His _lord father_ had nearly killed him on the day of his birth, wouldn’t shed a tear if he died – and yet Tyrion _would_ be Lord of Casterly Rock.  _Would,_ if Tywin would let him.  Jaime would throw the castle in his father’s face, Cersei would claw out his eyes – but Jaime was still golden, and even Cersei would someday be forgiven.  There was no sin so foul as being born a dwarf.

Tyrion was so lost in thought that he almost missed his father’s next words.

“You took three letters from this drawer, broke the lock on this one, read every paper on my desk, and rummaged through the rubbish basket for I know not what.”  Lord Tywin didn’t raise his voice.  He didn’t need to.

Tyrion boggled.  “I did _not_!”  It came out in the voice of that five year old at Casterly Rock.  He tried to calm his breathing, while Lord Tywin loomed above him, silent.  “I have no key to your solar – I assume you keep it locked.  I certainly couldn’t have entered through windows fifty feet off the ground – barred windows.  Further – furthermore, if you tell me _when_ this was done, I can give you upwards of a dozen reasons I was somewhere else!”  He breathed heavily, his palms sweating.  Lord Tywin’s eyes were as impenetrable as ever.  “ _I did not break into your solar.  I did not rifle through your desk.”_   He was angry, now, he knew it, and that was never a good thing when dealing with Lord Tywin.  He needed to stop before he said something worse.

Lord Tywin breathed out.  Tyrion half-expected dragon flames.

“Enough of this.  Return them, and I will not have to call in the guards or the Watch.”

“I don’t have them,” Tyrion ground out.  “I never had them.  I don’t even know what they _were_.”  A fly was buzzing circles in one corner, coming perilously close to his father’s head, its reflection visible on the bald skin.  Tyrion bit his cheek.

“Tyrion.”  Lord Tywin leant over, looming, searching for something in his son’s face.  Tyrion doubted he’d find it; he never had before.  “Two days.  Return them, and we will forget this ever happened.”  _That_ was a lie if he’d ever heard one.  “You are dismissed.”

Tyrion stumbled back down the stairs.  He hadn’t been immediately disemboweled.  That was a plus, at least.  The papers were unlikely to have been state secrets, then – more likely just the insult to Lord Tywin inherent in some stranger rifling through his things.

Of course, now he had to _find_ them.  Find them, find Rhaenys’ pet conspiracy, find whatever was eating up his brother, whoever had tried to poison his father.  Supper that night was mostly wine.

-

He nearly slept through the bells.

Tyrion blearily pulled on a tunic and a cloak, and set out for the “fifth garden” – a small patio near where Varys kept his rooms.  Too common a location for anything truly worldshaking, but when the Spider said jump, Tyrion jumped, and prayed to come down again with both his feet.

He waited in the dark.  The flagstones were cold, and the wind had a touch of autumn.

Half an hour. That was unlike Varys.

Tyrion gritted his teeth, and prepared to do something very stupid.  With each staircase, each doorhandle, he tried to talk himself out of it again.  Visiting Varys in his chambers was a _bad idea._   In the best case, it would prove Tyrion was unreliable.  In the worst case, and the most likely, he’d see something he wasn’t meant to, and very shortly after never see anything again.

The door was cracked open.  Tyrion froze.

He looked for guards.  None.  Calling out was a poor idea on a number of levels.

Slowly, with a shaking hand, he pushed open the door.

There were ceramic shards of something on the floor.  Tyrion stepped on one, but he barely noticed the pain.

A heavy man in silks lay slumped over a table, unmoving.  Tyrion stepped closer to see the face, eyes unblinking, blood on its lips dripping down and pooling on the lacquered wood.

The Spider was dead.


	3. Brienne I

“No.  Again.”

“Your grace – ”

Queen Lyanna was panting, her tunic soaked with sweat.  Dark hair fell across her face.  “I said again!”

Brienne raised her training sword, and the Queen lunged forward to meet her, weak blows easily parried.  She was pushing herself past exhaustion, but she was a _queen,_ the beauty who’d felled two kings, and Brienne didn’t know how to tell her to stop.

“Stop _playing,_ damn you, girl!”  The Queen lunged forwards.  Brienne sidestepped her.

Queen Lyanna didn’t train enough, that much had become obvious.  That was the problem, that was… that was why Brienne had been brought to court.

_“You think it’ll help to get her a pet?”_

Brienne gritted her teeth, and struck out.  The Queen met the first blow, with a huff of breath that was nearly a laugh.  The second staggered her.

The third knocked her to the ground.

It wasn’t the first time, not nearly, but Brienne’s hands still went numb on her sword as she saw Queen Lyanna fall, her eyes flickering again towards the silent figure in white.  At least he was Sand and not Lannister – or the Sword of the Morning. 

The Queen rubbed her forehead, not seeming to mind that she was sprawled on her back in the dust.  “ _Ah._ ”

Brienne hastily dropped her sword, and reached out a hand to help the Queen to her feet.  She rose gingerly, favoring one hip, but she was smiling.

It was not a bright smile, not a smile that could win a king.  It was a cold, tight thing.  Brienne had seen perhaps half a dozen of them, all the same.  She prayed as devoutly as her queen for the return of Prince Jon and his father. 

“Come on then, Tarth.  I think that’s enough for today.”

-

Queen Lyanna sprawled back on pillows of Dornish silk, wine in her hand.  Brienne sat stiff-backed and awkwardly across from her.

She had drowsed off, twice, though she wasn’t sure if the Queen had slept at all.  Servants and ladies – Queen Lyanna had few ladies – moved in and out, but the Queen didn’t seem to notice them.

“You were never betrothed, then?”

Brienne flushed.  She wasn’t sure how the conversation had gotten here, and she could feel herself on unsteady ground.  The Queen had been betrothed, and the realm had bled.  Her series of awkward suitors made poor telling at the best of times, even the one she’d beaten to the ground.  It was better forgotten.  Here she was, the Queen’s sworn shield.  _None of them can hurt me now._

“To Lord Caron’s son,” she said, finally, the words tripping over themselves in haste to be gone.  “He was a page at court.  He died.”

Lyanna gave her a brief, grim nod.  “I remember him.”  Her fingers flexed around the stem of her goblet, and she drank as though steeling herself for something.  “A child.  Told her future was set in stone.  Put yourself back in those shoes, Tar- Brienne.  I suspect you were more dutiful than I.”

What she remembered of those days was her father, gaunt with grief, her brother’s swollen hands when he’d washed back up on the beach, her mother – 

She closed her eyes.

The Queen continued on.  “What would you say, then, if I asked you to marry Tywin Lannister?”

Brienne started.  “Your grace?”

The smile was as bitter a thing as ever.  “Not you yourself.  In _general_ terms.  If I – ”

A loud rap upon the door startled them both.  Brienne’s sword was on a footstool between them; it was the Queen who reached for it. 

“ _Lya.”_   Queen Elia smiled wryly from the doorframe.  A belated page rushed through the announcement of _theQueen’sGrace_ as Brienne tried not to trip taking a knee.

“What’s wrong?”  Queen Lyanna pulled Brienne to her feet, handing her the sword as she walked towards Queen Elia and the two Kingsguard behind her.  Her voice was sharp.  “Elia, what happened?”

Queen Elia’s smile vanished as quickly as it had appeared.  There were dark shadows beneath her eyes.  “Your guards were gone.  I had to see that you were all right.”

“I dismissed them.  I’ve a guard in here.”  She gestured sharply towards Brienne, but her eyes remained on Queen Elia.  “Who’s dead?”

Brienne startled, half at the question and half at the bluntness.  Someone had tried to poison Lord Lannister, she remembered, though it had been kept quiet.  She remembered the Queen’s question to her with another flinch.

Queen Elia swallowed, and Lyanna’s voice changed tone entirely.

“Elia – Aegon – tell me it’s not – ”

Queen Elia took both of Lyanna’s hands, and squeezed them.  Brienne felt for a strange moment as though she should look away.  “No. It’s Lord Varys.”

_The eunuch?_

“Aegon is safe,” Queen Elia continued.  “Ser Arthur is with him.  You’re safe.  I suppose the next thing to be done…”  Her eyes came to rest on Brienne, sizing her up. 

Brienne straightened her spine in response, acutely aware of her lack of armor.  _I’ve a guard in here._   But there was little she could have done to defend the Queen asleep in a chair.  She looked over at the two Kingsguard, and realized with another flush of embarrassment that one was Lannister, his green eyes unmistakable even in the dim light. 

_You think it’ll help to get her a pet?_

Cruel words, cruel men.  He probably didn’t even remember them.  He’d thought to make a moments jest, and instead that mocking voice had joined all the others, the chorus that haunted her nights and sharpened her sword.

She kept her back straight, and stopped looking at him, turned her gaze back to Queen Elia. 

“I will protect Queen Lyanna with my life, your grace.”

“I do not doubt it, child.”  Queen Elia’s smile was kind.  “Ser Jaime, Tyrion –”

The door swung open once more.  This time, the page could barely stutter out a word.

Queen Melisandre stood, candle-shadows playing over her white skin.  Her red eyes were bright in the darkness, and Brienne suppressed a shudder.  Here, beside her sister-wives, the Red Woman looked nothing close to human.

“Come,” said Melisandre.  “There is work to be done.”

-

The three Queens retreated to an inner chamber.  One of the Kingsguard knights went to stand watch in the corridor.  This left Brienne alone with Ser Jaime and “Tyrion.”

Brienne had some knowledge of the Imp of Lannister, but she had never spoken to him.  He was a small shadow behind his brother – at least, until the three Queens had cleared the room.  Then he walked forward, flung himself down on Queen Lyanna’s pillows, and began to help himself to her wine.

“Tyrion,” said Ser Jaime.  There was affection in it.

“What lips, what lips, have kissed this mortal clay?”  Tyrion spun the goblet in his fingers.  “That they may touch mine, what man can say – ”

Brienne snatched the goblet back.  It appeared, then, that the rumors were true.  The debauched younger son, the drunken sot, even the mismatched eyes.  She did not want this man in Queen Lyanna’s chambers.

She wanted less Ser Jaime’s bark of laughter, but there it was.

“Tyrion, brother.”  His smile was wide and gleaming.  “I do believe you’re frightening Ser Maid.”

“Brienne,” she spat out, and then wished that she hadn’t.  You couldn’t feed men like this.  You just needed to stand, a bulwark, and pick yourself back up when they threw you to the ground.

Ser Jaime waved a hand, a dismissal rather than an apology.

“ _Brienne of Tarth.”_   She clenched the swordhilt, so tightly that her fingers burned.

“Ser Jaime Lannister,” he shot back, “my lady.  And may I present – “

“No, you may not.”  Tyrion pulled himself back off the pile of pillows.  Brienne averted her eyes when he nearly fell.  Drunk and debauched or not, there was something in him that reminded her of herself.  Broken pieces, the things that did not fit.  The disappointments.  She had her pride, and she suspected he had his.

“Brother, _Lady Brienne._   May I please call your attention to that room?”  Tyrion shoved his thumb towards the locked door.  “Lord Varys is dead.  Poisoned, most likely.  I know that because _I_ found his body.  Their graces, I imagine, will emerge shortly with an idea of how _they_ want to handle the situation.”

“You _found_ him?”  There was a shot of anger in Ser Jaime’s words.  “You only told me that – ”

“Lord Varys,” said Brienne, quietly.  Everyone was wary of Lord Varys.  And poison.  Someone might poison Brienne herself quite easily, she supposed, if they were careful with the right dose.  She wasn’t afraid here.  She’d never worried about what was in the waterskin she grabbed after sparring sessions, or the cakes Elia offered her after dinner.  She doubted she ever _would._ No one would want to poison Brienne of Tarth.  But plenty of people would want to poison a spy – or whatever Lord Varys had been.  And a spy would know that.  “Poison.  That sounds… difficult.”

She hadn’t thought they were really listening to her, but Tyrion answered at once.

“Incredibly difficult.”  He shook his head.  “Varys has … ways… of testing his food.  Even if Rhaegar drags him to a feast.  Alone, in his room… It didn’t make any sense.  It still doesn’t.”

“Are you sure it was really him?”

“Yes, Jaime, I cut him open with a dinner knife until I was thoroughly satisfied.  Of course not!  I doubt the Grand Maester will be _completely_ sure.  _If,_ of course, the body doesn’t disappear itself.”  He shook his head.  “My wine, Lady Tarth?”

-

She’d gained no better impression of the Lannister brothers by the time they were walking down a maze of twisting corridors towards Lord Varys’ rooms.  Or what had been his rooms.

“This seems… out of the way,” she ventured, finally.  Even after a weeks in the Red Keep, she still felt awkward wearing her breeches and padded tunic out in public.  _Armor_ might have protected her from stares, but yesterday’s practice clothes did not.  And today, between the silence of the Lannisters and the whispers of the servants, she felt more strange and conspicuous than ever.

To say nothing of their _mission._

“For a member of the Small Council, you mean?”  Tyrion seemed as eager as her to break the silence.  “King Rhaegar likes to move him around.  It’s their little game.  Varys hints that Viserys might like a Council seat, Rhaegar moves his chambers to the top of ten sets of stairs.  Once he had him in the servant’s quarters, but _that_ was a mistake.”

His brother joined in on Tyrion’s chuckles.  Brienne stayed silent.

Lord Tyrion had found Lord Varys’ body.  He was also the only man, so far, who would admit to having even seen Varys on the day of his death.  Brienne knew nothing of him but his reputation, but gossip had him a useless layabout, not a murderer.

A murder.  She didn’t know what help Queen Lyanna expected her to be.  She was good with a mace, and passable with a sword.  She wasn’t _clever._ Years of lessons and the Septa who taught them had made that clear enough.

“Isn’t there a faster way?”  Ser Jaime’s eyes scanned the maze of doors ahead of them.  His voice was tight.

“That’s what we’re looking for,” hissed Tyrion.  “In his chambers, at least.  I don’t know the passages in this part of the Keep.”

Ser Jaime sighed.  “At least – ”  He suddenly yanked Brienne’s arm.  “Back!  Now!”

They were tangled behind a door before she had time to think, Ser Jaime’s left vambrace digging into her belly, Tyrion elbowing her thigh to peer around her.

“What – ”

“ _Shhh.”_  

Brienne clenched her fists.  She heard Tyrion sigh.

Two men in red and gold strode past the door.  Out of the corner of her eye, Brienne say Ser Jaime’s face, dark with tension.  Tyrion sighed again, softer this time.

Brienne pulled herself free of Ser Jaime’s white cape.  The men in red vanished around another corner.

“Those were your father’s men,” said Brienne, turning on Ser Jaime.  “Why were we – ”

“If Lord Tywin wants to help, he can speak to the Queen.”  He could have been any member of the Kingsgaurd, stiff in white armor.  Not a son talking about his father.  “Come.”

Brienne let out a hiss of air, and stood for a moment, watching him stride ahead.  She breathed again and again, willing herself to calm.  She was the Queen’s sworn shield.  Lannister’s problems were none of her concern.  Lannister’s _words_ were none of her concern.

She squared her shoulders, and followed him on.

-

The room was in disarray, but whether the chairs turned sideways and tapestry half on the floor were due to the murder or the guards, Brienne had no idea. There was a single window, on the opposite wall; outside, dawn was beginning to break.

“Right,” said Tyrion.  “Jaime, lock the door, and then check his bedchamber.  Lady Tarth, see to that window.  He had a guest, most likely, but that’s all the guards discovered before throwing me out.”  He overturned a pillow with one foot. 

“Are you sure it was poison?” Brienne asked. 

“Of course not.”  He let out a ragged sigh.  “He might have had a guest.  He might have been preparing for a guest.  He might have been carving out _eyes,_ for all the help the servants were.  Still, I have been ‘reliably informed’ that no one was seen at his door.”  He was now examining the half-fallen tapestry, an abstract pattern in red.  “No good there… Again, the window?”

It was latched, and the metal grille was thick enough to serve as dungeon bars.  Brienne wedged it up and open with difficulty.  Ten feet or so below was a small landing with a heavy spiked rail, hazy in the orange light, and then a long drop.  Brienne squinted.

There was something pale caught in the ironwork.

“Lord Tyrion?”

There was a crash from behind her.  It was Ser Jaime who met her at the window; Brienne glanced back and around him to see another tapestry on the floor and Tyrion easing his way around the leftmost wall, pressing his fingers to the stonework and muttering to himself.

“There’s something down there!” Ser Jaime announced.  “Tyrion, we’re headed down.”

Slightly louder muttering was the only reply.  Brienne looked into Jaime Lannister’s smug face. 

“After you, Ser Maid.”  He held the window up, staggering slightly.

Brienne looked down, again, then yanked at his cloak.  He started in surprise, but then unfastened it.  Tied to the window frame, it would see her at least some of the way down.  She had no desire for a rough landing on those spikes.

Brienne levered herself out the window, avoiding Lannister’s face.  The cloak held up well enough, and she dropped the last five feet to the ground.  A thump announced that he’d followed, but she was already reaching out towards the pale bundle lodged in the railing.

Feathers.  She squinted in the dim light.

A dead seagull.  She’d come down here for a dead seagull. 

Brienne’s face went red, and she slowly turned around.  At the moment, she would have preferred facing down a dragon to meeting Ser Jaime’s mocking eyes.  “It’s nothing,” she said, gritting her teeth, looking down.  “Let’s head back up –”

_Oh, no._

Ser Jaime was supporting himself on the wall, blatantly favoring one foot.

“It’s nothing,” he echoed her, trying to shift his weight.  Behind him, his white cloak still hung from the window, now nearly ripped in half.

Brienne looked up past him to the window.  She could probably make the climb.  He was in armor with a likely twisted ankle.

“Lord Tyrion?” she yelled up.  There was no response.  A current of worry went through her, but she forced it back down.

Lannister let out a sigh, unbuckling one of his pauldrons.  He flung it up and through the lighted square of the window, and then grimaced.  “That… won’t work for most of it.  Lucky you’ve got arms on you, swordwench.”  A flash of a smile.  Brienne clenched her fists.

They sent a few more pieces of armor up and into the room, and one gauntlet on an arcing journey down into the gardens below.  There would be no help for the rest of it.  Brienne reached up and tested the ruined cloak.

“It won’t bear our weight,” she said, and Lannister rolled his eyes.  “I’ll have to lift you up.”

He was heavy, and pointy, and gave her a blow to the belly as she tried to settle him on her shoulders, armor digging into her neck.

“Ser Maid –” and his voice was suddenly tight with pain “—a little higher, I think!”

She used the wall as leverage, pushing them both against it.  He was still mostly armored.  He’d be fine.  “Swordwench was better,” she gritted out.

“Well, I always endeavor to – got it!”  The pressure on her shoulders lifted as he levered himself back inside.  A moment later, another makeshift rope descended, this one seemingly a bed cover.  Brienne tried not to think about corpses as she pulled herself back through the window frame.

“Oh, good,” said Tyrion.  “You’re back.”  He didn’t look away from the wall paneling he was currently running his hands across. 

Brienne tried to catch her breath.  Ser Jaime was slumped against the remains of a chair, trying to remove his left greave and boot.  “The swordwench found a bird.”

Brienne glared.  “Ser Jaime tried to jump ten feet in _armor._ ”

His eyes were very green, and very bright.  He seemed to be _enjoying_ himself.  She fought the urge to push him back out the window.

_Click._

They both turned to Tyrion, standing smugly beside a sliding panel.  Behind him, a tunnel stretched down into darkness.

“Found it.” 

Brienne walked forward cautiously.  She’d heard of these, scattered around the Red Keep.  She’d never seen one.  The tunnel was small, with a low ceiling, and gave way quickly to a narrow set of stairs.  “Do you know where it might go?” she asked.

“Anywhere,” said Tyrion.  “There’s a warren of them.  Aerys collapsed a few when – well.  During the fire.  But otherwise…” He looked down towards the stairs.  “Fetch me a lamp.”

Brienne turned back towards Lord Varys’ chambers, walking carefully and crouched.  Wooden beams supported the ceiling, which was barely high enough for her to move easily already.  An even lower one guard the threshold to the room –

“Lord Tyrion!” she called out.

He was beside her in an instant.  Even Ser Jaime began limping over, hand outstretched.

She pulled a few hairs from the beam, and dropped them into his palm.  Even in the dim light, they shimmered, silver-gold.


	4. Elia II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I liiiive...  
> So sorry for the giant gap between updates, been working on my original novel - kept my new year's resolution for at least a sentence each day! Anyway, here's more murder mystery.

Elia watched Lyanna pace about the room, leaving a wreckage of pillows and cushions in her wake.  “Varys,” she spat out into the air, for the fifth time, and then was back in motion, Elia’s second favorite stool tumbling to the ground as Lyanna whipped by.  “Varys, and the Red Woman, and damned Tywin Lannister - !”

Elia sat the stool back upright.  “Who is none too pleased _someone_ ransacked his office.”

Lyanna stilled, and turned to look at her.  There was no apology in those tired, beautiful gray eyes.

“You’re quite fortunate Ser Arthur was the one who found you,” Elia continued.

Lyanna collapsed onto a none-too-stable pile of cushions, throwing her hands up in the air.  “Aren’t we all fortunate in Ser Arthur?”  She hissed a breath out through her teeth.

“Indeed we are,” said Elia, opting to take the higher road.  Rhaegar’s “Tower of Joy” had not been an easy thing for the prisoner within, and now, with the loss of the son she’d borne there, Elia knew that it haunted Lyanna’s dreams.  Ser Arthur had been kind, there – Ser Arthur was always kind – and would have kept her safe, if the war had ended badly, but Elia could not blame Lyanna for lashing out.  Gods knew _she_ had wanted to.

“The Daynes are a noble house,” Elia continued, “their men good, their women brave.  A young girl could do much worse than to marry a Dayne.”

Lyanna’s eyes narrowed – not in anger.  In recognition.  “Better than to Lord Lannister, at least.”

“I thought that the offer was for Ser Jaime,” Elia continued, mildly.

Lyanna sighed, head tilted back.  Elia could see the last faded bit of a bite she’d left against that snowy throat, but this was no time to be distracted.  “Don’t be coy.  Ser Jaime won’t take it, and Lord Tywin has all but disowned Tyrion already – more’s the better, he deserves better than a father like that.  But that leaves Lord Tywin heirless, and widowed, and, as Hand of the King, the only one who can approve a _traitor’s_ marriage, a Stark marriage, and -!”  Her hands were white-knuckled fists.  “He’ll hold Pup and Howland’s girl hostage until Sansa’s lady of the Rock.  Don’t tell me he won’t.”

“Pup”’s real name was Robb.  For obvious reasons, Elia knew, it was rarely spoken aloud.  Lyanna had met her eldest nephew only once, and her niece Sansa for a briefer time still. 

“She’s three-and-ten,” said Lyanna, her voice suddenly very small.  Elia reached out for her closer hand, and clutched it tightly between both of hers.

Her mind didn’t follow quite the same tracks as Lyanna’s.  She knew Lord Tywin better, or, at least, she hoped she did.  She didn’t think he was ready to give up on Ser Jaime yet – and though he certainly _acted_ as though poor Tyrion was no son of his on the rare occasions they chanced to meet, disowning him completely was a rather more complicated matter.  To marry again – _but that’s not what’s important now,_ Elia reminded herself. 

Lyanna was important.

“Three-and-ten,” Elia repeated, keeping her voice soft.  She cast her mind back to time spent with her daughter, teaching her dates and names and the Houses of Dorne.  “Six months the elder, I think, of Lord Edric.  Arthur and Ashara’s nephew.  A charming little lad.” 

Lyanna’s head was bowed, her dark hair hiding her eyes.  Elia stroked her fingers, softly.  “He would be good to her, and Starfall is beautiful.”

“Dorne?”  Lyanna’s head shot up, and her eyes flashed, but her voice was more resigned than furious.  “Good to a Stark?”  She shook her head.  “I’m quite sure yours remains the only forgiveness on offer.”

“Lyanna.”  Elia took a deep breath.  “You were a child.  And yes, I hated you, and I hated Rhaegar, but you have never wronged me of your own will.”

Lyanna snorted.  “I chose to run with him.  I chose to leave.”

They could have this argument a thousand times.  Elia found she had no more patience for it.  “Ser Arthur petitioned Rhaegar to spare your brother.  You know that.  And Ashara – ”  Elia laughed.  “You know Ashara.  She would adore you, if you’d let her.”

“Sansa’s a good girl,” Lyanna said, apparently opting to sidestep Ashara.  “That’s what they all say.  The Red Rose of Winterfell.  A good girl.  I don’t – I don’t know what she wants, what she dreams of, if there’s a boy – or,” a bubble of strange laughter, a squeeze of Elia’s hand, “a girl, for that matter, back at Winterfell.  But I won’t let her wed Lord Lannister.   I won’t.”

Elia’s mother had adored Lady Joanna.  Lord Tywin had worshipped her.  He had it in him to be a good husband, even as bitter and as cruel as he was now.  Perhaps Rhaenys could find him a strong and fertile widow, if he truly was determined to wed again.

But Lyanna’s niece… Lyanna’s niece would be _happy,_ if it was in Elia’s power to make her so.

-

Melisandre had left them soon after they’d sent their little party of investigators out.  Elia could admit to herself that she was pleased to see her go.  Aegon’s fever had gone down since the priestess had begun treating him, and he was lucid each time he woke, and Elia was grateful – but that woman would be Rhaegar’s ruin, she could feel it in her bones. The Iron Throne would not survive another rebellion. 

Aegon, Jon, and Viserys.  Aegon was a good boy, her precious boy, kind to the servants and the smallfolk and braver than he knew.  But she felt a harsh, sharp sorrow sometimes that _Nymeria_ had not been the one to ride a dragon across Westeros.  A crown was a heavy thing, a shattering thing, and Rhaenys would bear it better than her brother.

(She remembered standing in front of Aerys, on legs still weak from the birthing bed, as he raged at her daughter’s _Dornish smell._ They said even he had been kind once.  But Elia had smiled as they burnt his broken body, even as her eyes watered from the smoke.)

Elia was torn from her memories by a hesitant knock on the inner door, followed up after a moment by another, more insistent and lower down.

“Come in,” she said.

Lyanna’s hand was at her hip, reaching for the dagger she wasn’t wearing, but, leaving aside the clue of the knocks, Elia knew even Ser Balon wasn’t fool enough to let assassins through the outer door into the Queen’s chambers. 

Brienne of Tarth sunk into something between a kneel, a curtsy, and an early water-dancing form, while the Lannister brothers made short bows, Ser Jaime holding his a second longer.  His handsome face was waxen.

Lyanna took her hand awkwardly off her hip, and gestured for Lady Brienne to rise.  Elia looked the Lannister brothers up and down.  Ser Jaime was swallowing nervously every few seconds, and favoring one leg.  One of his pauldrons was attached at an awkward angle.  Something had rattled him, and badly.  Young Tyrion’s lips were twitching, his hands clenching and unclenching in nervous excitement.  Nothing of it boded well.

Elia opened her mouth, but Lyanna was first to speak.  “What did you find?”

-

The five of them stared at the lock of hair, shining silver in the early morning light. 

“Prince Viserys,” said Ser Jaime, his jaw tight.

Elia looked down a moment longer.  “Perhaps.”  She lightly touched the clump with the tip of her finger; one of the party had tied a bit of string around the lock to keep it together.   

“We don’t know how old it is,” said Tyrion, more cautiously than Elia would have expected.  “Any number of people…”

 _Aegon, Daenerys… Rhaegar._ Elia reached out for Lyanna instinctively.  “It need not belong to the murderer at all, then.”

It proved only that Lord Varys had guests.  Perhaps not even royal ones; Lord Velaryon certainly thought highly enough of himself to consult a spymaster.  And then there were the pale-haired Lysene at court – Dymaris, Ser Tyles’ mother, had been one, and then there was charming Mythar Herys, who’d accepted his lovely wife’s black-haired babe with delight, likely because they’d both been in bed with her brother when it was conceived. 

“And who had that room before?” Lyanna asked.  Her hands were tight fists beneath Elia’s.  “Any number of people, I’d imagine.”  Her voice was somewhere between defiance and defeat.

“That corner of the castle…” Tyrion Lannister tilted his head back.  “More than one of the Unworthy’s mistresses, I know that much.”  He drummed his fingers on the back of an empty chair.

“I think,” said Elia, “that we can strike Aegon IV from our list of suspects.”

There was a sort of hollow, polite laughter.  Hope and energy were draining from the room, water spilled into sand.

“You did well,” said Elia, with determination.  “You have my thanks.”

Ser Jaime bowed, then grimaced.  Brienne of Tarth visibly swelled.

Tyrion Lannister looked darkly at the ground, and said nothing.

-

“Mother?”

The sound of Rhaenys’ voice awoke her.  Elia had fallen, finally, into a light sleep by Aegon’s bed.  He, too, was asleep, but his fever seemed finally to have broken for good. 

Elia turned to her daughter, stifling an unqueenly yawn.  “What is it?”  Rhaenys’ face was drawn and nervous, and Elia couldn’t stop a wild, desperate thought – _who else is dead?_

“Did you know that Queen Lyanna’s brother is at Storm’s End?”

Elia froze.  “Which brother, Rhaenys?”  The question bought her time to quiet her whirling thoughts.  She knew the answer would be Benjen before her daughter spoke.  But she _hadn’t_ known any of the Starks had left Winterfell, much less that they were at the seat of the Rebel Stag’s own brother, and Lyanna – Lyanna hadn’t known either.  She couldn’t have. 

“The younger,” said Rhaenys, her eyes narrowed.  “With a passel of Northmen, Edmure Tully, and at least one of the Tyrells.”  She counted them off on her fingers.  “I don’t know all the names yet.  But I would imagine they rode with Robert Baratheon – or their fathers did.”

_Or their brothers._

Lord Stark had thrown down his sword.  Offered to take the black for the sake of his son.  Lyanna had been close to death after birthing her own, and Elia can still remember her, wet with tears at Rhaegar’s feet.  He had been in a strange, mad mood, her husband, so soon after the killing of his father.  No mercy for Lord Arryn.  The Wall for Lord Stannis.  Then he’d turned around and given their castles and high lordships to their rightful heirs – though _finding_ Lord Arryn’s had been something of a challenge.  Elia had begged, too – begged Lord Tywin to return as Hand of the King, for something strong and stable in the midst of all the chaos.  She had not begged Rhaegar.  She had ordered.

But Lord Stark.  Rhaegar had spared him, spared his House, spared his wife’s House.  Had sat closeted with him for hours, talking of the Mad King and gods knew what else.  Lord Eddard had fought King Aerys for the sake of his murdered father, his murdered brother.  Elia hadn’t been there, for that, but she had seen Aerys burn other men alive.  Heard other men screaming when she pled illness to stay in her chambers. 

It had been fifteen years.  Lord Eddard had no reason to turn traitor now.

But what of Lord Benjen?  Lord Edmure?  Lord Baratheon, little Renly, her poor, sad cupbearer?  Young men.  Young men who saw weakness, who saw their king forsake the kingdom for months on end, only to return with a third wife and no Prince Jon.  Rhaegar had greatness in him.  Elia knew that.  But he was kinslayer, kingslayer, a dreamer who cared nothing for the laws of gods and men.

She remembered her thoughts of the Red Woman, and shuddered.

_The Iron Throne would not survive another rebellion._


	5. Jaime II

The book dropped onto Aegon’s bed in a flutter of pages.

Jaime tilted his head.  “Problems, your Grace?”

The prince huffed out a breath.  “My blasted head, still.”  He raised a shaking hand to press between his eyes.  “You’d think I’d be used to it, by now.”

Jaime shifted his stance, taking weight back off his bad ankle.  The fool of a Maester had suggested _he_ take a day in bed, but with only four of the Kingsguard left in the palace and a poisoner on the loose, the sky would have to fall before he’d neglect his duty.

Ser Barristan had left the day before to go collect Princess Daenerys from Summerhall.

If he could.

She’d spent the past year lying to them that Prince Jon was in Essos, sending her brother desperately haring off to the Free Cities and beyond, all for the sake of her nephew’s _freedom._ Jaime couldn’t imagine she’d give up her own so easily.  And she was a kind enough girl, for all her wildness; Jaime could easily imagine that she didn’t want to look Queen Lyanna in the eyes.

Or her other nephew, for that matter.

“Do you know where Rhaenys is, ser?”  Aegon had given up on the book, now, and was staring intently at his hands.  They didn’t shake as badly as they had even yesterday.  The Red Queen had given her new family one blessing, then. 

“In her rooms, most likely, your Grace.”  _With my brother._ Tyrion and the Princess had been tearing through their scrolls and family trees, digging out old maps of the palace and records of the Rebellion and Jaime didn’t know what else.  She’d even gone and handed Lord Connington her favor when Queen Elia sent him out to Storm’s End yesterday, thought _that_ didn’t seem a marriage likely to pan out.  Through all of it, his brother had stood beside her, sparkling in silk and silver.

King’s Landing had been good for Tyrion.  It had kept him safe, at least, when the Lannisters had ripped themselves asunder.  It was the best boon Jaime had ever asked of his King.  Three.  He’d asked three, at different times, on his knees for Cersei, on his knees for –

_“Let me, your Grace!  I beg you!”_

“She’ll still read to me.”  Prince Aegon’s welcome, weary voice.  “Though I’m a man grown, or so they say.”  He put his fingers to his temples, trying to push against the pain.  “And Jon.  Jon would.  Have you heard from Father?”

“No, your Grace.  Not since the last letter.”  They’d found him safe at the Wall, off playing soldier.  Jaime clenched his fist unconsciously. 

Aegon slammed himself back against the pillows, his forearm over his eyes.  “Jon won’t come home.”

“I don’t –“

“I don’t need your platitudes, Ser Jaime.  Jon won’t come home.  Not if he’s sworn a vow to the Night’s Watch.”  A hint of a weak smile.  “He never even _lied,_ when we were children.  Only Dany could ever get him into trouble.  Do you remember – ”  The Prince broke off, fighting for breath.  “Do you remember, the raspberries?”

Jaime smiled.  “She thought she’d have red hair.”

“Mad Danelle Lothston and the Second Blackfyre Rebellion.  I can’t remember who Jon was – I was Aegon the Unlikely, of course.  Jon –”

Prince Jon had been Bloodraven, raspberries smeared across half his face.  None of it would have been a problem had he not slammed directly into Mace Tyrell while running to Aegon’s rescue.  The Fat Flower had shrieked about his new doublet, and then Egg and Mad Lady Lothston had charged in to Jon’s defense.  King Rhaegar had charged Jaime with keeping him from laughing while he sentenced the children and placated Lord Tyrell. 

It had been easy enough.  Ten years ago.  There had been no one in Kings Landing then who laughed as little as Ser Jaime Lannister.

A knock at the door startled them both.  Jaime limped over, and opened the door a few inches to peer out.  A servant girl stared at him with wide dark eyes.  “Lemon – lemon water?  For his Grace?  Ser?”

Queen Elia had always followed the Dornish custom, supplementing the medicine for Aegon’s colds and agues with citrus fruit.  Oranges were harder and harder to come by in autumn, and it had been lemon water the past few days, as only Princess Rhaenys would eat a lemon plain.

Jaime sniffed the tumbler of lemon water.  The tray rattled.

“It’s – it’s for his Grace, Ser.  Just as Queen Melisandre said - !”  Her smile was wide and brittle.  Her eyes were terrified.

Jaime sighed.  “Drink it, please.”

The girl dropped tray and cup both, whirling to run.

Jaime leapt after her, grabbing her arm but coming down heavily on his bad ankle.  He swore, which only seemed to terrify the girl more.  She was sobbing now, wailing, and still desperately trying to pull her arm out of his grasp. 

“Guards!”

Two men in heavy armor were already sprinting towards him.  _She hadn’t even found a way to send them off._   Two of them levered the girl down onto her knees.

“Take her to – ”  Jaime paused.  _Not_ to the Hand of the King.  “Take her to the cells.  The Queens will deal with her at their pleasure.”

He turned back to Aegon’s chamber, unease filling his belly. 

But the room was empty but for the Prince, who was now sitting up entirely, bright eyes trained on Jaime.

“Well, your Grace,” he said, smiling widely, trying to cover a shaking feeling of relief, “Congratulations!  You’ve just survived the single worst assassination attempt in the history of the Iron Throne!”

-

He stayed with the Prince as servants and guardsmen bustled in and out.  One of Uncle Kevan’s sons – Martyn, maybe?  Willem?  He’d never been able to tell them apart, even back when he had cared – was one of King Rhaegar’s squires, and like the rest had had precious little to do over the past miserable year.  Jaime opted for a shout of “Coz!” instead, and sent the boy off to the Queens with a short message.  Half the city would no doubt be ringing before nightfall with news of Aegon’s poisoning, Aegon’s death, Aegon’s substitution by a false prince, Aegon’s murder by his own father, his own brother, his own Kingsguard.  The Queens deserved the truth, and as quick as he could get it to them.

Queen Elia swept in like a ship under full sail, orange and black silks trailing behind her.  Aegon levered himself up to greet her, and Jaime looked away as she swallowed her son in her arms.  Queen Lyanna looked stormtossed in her wake, gray and white, her hands clenched together and shaking.

There was no sign of Melisandre behind them, just Lyanna’s swordwench.  _Small blessings._

Brienne of Tarth looked even more shaken than Lyanna, her blue eyes wide and red-rimmed, her hand tight on the hilt of the shortsword at her side.

“He never drank it,” Jaime offered to them both.  “Never would have gotten close.”

The blue eyes narrowed as they took in his shaky grin, flickering down to his bad ankle.  Jaime shifted his weight towards it rather than away, turning his smile into a smirk to hide his wince at the pain.  “Worried about me, Ser Maid?”

Her head lowered and her shoulders rose, like the world’s largest songbird puffing itself up.  “Where were the other guards?”

Jaime sighed.  “In the hall.  They did their duty well enough once they had me there to bark orders at them.”

“Indeed.”

Jaime cannot hide his flinch this time.  Queen Melisandre hadn’t entered the room so much as appeared, a mass of red shadows on silent white feet.  Her hair was in lose curls down her back, and in the light of the candles it was a mass of dancing flames.  Jaime could think of no one he wanted to see less at this moment, except that her appearance almost certainly heralds –

“You said the wench is in the black cells, your Grace?”

– That of his father.

-

He made it through fifteen minutes.  He explained seeing the servant girl, he explained catching the servant girl, he stumbled over what would have been an ill-timed jest even in front of only the Queens. He stared resolutely at the wall two inches from Lord Tywin’s right ear to forestall any attempt at eye contact.

He clenched his fists, and thought of Cersei, until out of the corner of his eye he saw Queen Lyanna nudge Queen Elia.

“Ser Jaime,” and it was her most regal voice, hints of Dorne beneath the Kings Landing vowels.  “You’ve stood wounded too long.  Fetch Ser Arthur, if you would.”

He limped from the chamber as quickly as dignity would permit, and nearly collided with Ser Arthur in the process.

“The Queens –” he began.

“Your brother thought they might.”  Dayne smiled, and Jaime found himself smiling as well, in spite of everything.  The Sword of the Morning smiled at him, and in some foolhearted way he was a child again, back when kings were noble and fathers kind.

-

He took a seat on a low table in the antechamber to lean his back against the wall.  Tyrion had claimed the only chair, and dragged a pillow onto it from Jaime knew not where. 

“So,” asked Tyrion.  “What happened?”

Jaime huffed out a breath, staring at his hands.  “…I don’t know.”

To his surprise, Tyrion cracked a smile at that.  “You mean…?”

“It doesn’t make sense.”  His gauntlets scraped together.  “Someone killed Varys.  _Varys._   The most paranoid man in Kings Landing, and they poisoned him.  Then they send poisoned lemon water with a godsdamned _child_ who can’t even keep her voice from stuttering.  She won’t hold under torture, of course.  But she’ll say anything to end the pain. She’ll tell them it was grumpkins, snarks, or Argilac the bloody Arrogant if they ask her the right questions. Good luck sorting out the truth.”  He punched the wall, and then again, not realizing what he was doing until a small tapestry fluttered to the ground and his gauntlet was caked with grit.

“Hmm,” said Tyrion, ignoring this.  Jaime flicked his eyes back towards him.

“It seems to me,” Tyrion said, locking his gaze with Jaime’s, a sour smile at the edges of his lips, “that we have more than one poisoner in the Red Keep.  One who knows what they are doing.  And one… who wants to take advantage of the chaos.”

Jaime’s blood ran cold.  He whispered the name only so his brother wouldn’t shout it.

“Viserys.”

-

They’d been silent, after that, Jaime tossing the possibility around and around in his head.  He’d have to pay the Prince a visit, at least.  He’d been a sweet boy, once, willing to cross training swords and twigs with his cousins.  He’d charmed Arianne of Dorne  so much as children that it had once seemed a betrothal was inevitable.  But as he grew to manhood… well.  Rhaegar could be a king, or he could be a brother, and the first was difficult enough.  Jaime knew – the entire Red Keep knew – that Viserys resented the King.

There was a long road between that and poisoning Prince Aegon.  But Targaryens had done worse when they thought the realm in danger.  Jaime knew that.  Jaime’d _seen._

It stayed with him through the night, through what little sleep he managed.  Rhaenys, Aegon, and the Queens slept piled into one chamber, with Jaime and Ser Arthur at the door.  Brienne of Tarth stood on the other side, in a pale gray cloak Lyanna had given her.  Jaime could see it shifting, sometimes, through the cracks at the edges of the door.

He needed to talk to Prince Viserys.  To get this off his back, if nothing else. 

But for now, Ser Jaime Lannister stood guard.


	6. Connington I

Storm’s End loomed out of the fog, the great barrel of it visible for leagues on a clearer day.  Taken never by storm, and once by siege.

Aye, thought Jon Connington.  Taken by siege, and handed right back to the bloody traitors.  He feared Rhaegar would regret that mercy.  Too good a man, too easily swayed by a woman’s tears.  Now the stag and the wolf were rising again, and his king was chasing down a wolfblooded boy at the wall.

Jon shifted in his saddle.  He had twenty men at arms with him, all from his own keep, and two of the Red Keep’s household knights –  one of the Kettleblacks and useless Dontos Hollard.  Little Lucos Chyterring, his own squire, rode silently a few paces behind him.  Four-and-twenty men, likely all that remained of Rhaegar’s law in this place.

What worried him most were the Tyrells.

King Rhaegar had taken Renly as his own squire.  When Jon had counseled him against it, asking about Prince Aegon, the King had shaken his head.

“My sons will learn their arms from the Sword of the Morning.”  They’d been in one of Rhaegar’s antechambers, sunlight dappling in through colored glass to shine on the King’s unbound hair.  “I’d half-thought to send them off with hedge knights, _sing us a tale of a Dunk and an Egg, and all the lovely morning…”_   He hummed a few more notes, the sound slowly fading.  “But Aegon’s lungs…”

“You’ve a few years yet, your Grace, before he’s old enough,” Jon had told him.  “The Prince is sure to grow stronger.”

That had gotten a small smile, if nothing else, before the King’s face sank into melancholy again.  “Princes should learn their vows from men not their fathers.  Ser Arthur will teach them honor, too.  I’ll give no man leave to call Aegon VI a tainted king.”

“Your Grace,” Jon had told him, staring at the line of his cheek, willing him to turn his head.  “I defy any man to try.  My sword and honor are yours, and they are his.”

He’d felt some pity for little Lord Renly back then.  Even a sort of wistful happiness, when Rhaegar took on as a second squire the youngest son of a loyal house.  Lord Renly and Loras Tyrell had been inseparable, in a way he recognized, in a way he wished he’d ever been bold enough to be. 

Jon had known exactly which Tyrell was at Storm’s End the second her Grace had mentioned the rumor.  Treachery.  Black treachery.

He’d sent a letter to Highgarden during his brief stop at Griffin’s Roost, in case Ser Loras was just a too-bold boy and not a son acting on his father’s orders.  Perhaps a band of Reacher knights would come to reclaim him.

Perhaps a cloud of grumpkins would carry them all off into the sky.

Rain began to fall as they reached the gates.  Closed, of course.  Lucos struggled to unfurl a griffin banner, nearly falling from his hackney in the process, as Jon shouted at the barely visible flicker of a guard’s helmet to open the castle in the name of the King.

There was a brief moment of silence before the portcullis began to rise.  Two men in soaked yellow cloaks stood at each side of it, holding their halberds at attention.  Jon could feel their narrowed eyes on him as the party rode past.  They dismounted, and were led by silent servants into the main keep, Jon unable to stop his fingers from twitching for his swordhilt.

He nearly jumped when an elderly, decrepit Maester approached with a plate of bread, two pages following with wine.  _Guest right._   Very formal guest right, with still no lord of the keep in evidence.

“Where is Lord Renly?” Jon demanded, trying to slap Lucos’ hand away from the plate as subtly as possible.

“Out hunting, I’m afraid, my lord.”

“In this weather?”  Kettleblack’s voice indicated that he thought he was being clever, and now Jon had to fight to keep his fingers not from his swordhilt but from his forehead.

“A little rain never harmed a Stormlord, _Kettle_.”  Old Yason Storm, his own serjeant, and Jon didn’t need to look back to see his cold grey eyes roll, nor to predict Kettleblack’s snarl at being insulted by a man-at-arms. 

“When can we expect his return?”  Jon forced his voice up over the stomps, glares, and whispers breaking out behind him. 

“A messenger has been sent out, my lord.”

“And?”

“Before sunset, I should hope.”  The old man had kind eyes, but tired, and his hands were beginning to tremble under the weight of the platter.  He ought to have handed the duty to a servant, and Jon solved the issue by beckoning Lucos forwards.

The bread was summer wheat, slightly sweetened.  The wine was, unsurprisingly, Arbor Gold.  Jon closed his eyes and let the taste of it settle on his tongue.

-

They were shown to a roomy set of guest apartments, the Maester taking no visible offence from Jon’s demand to have his men-at-arms nearby.  He’d had hopes of being able to question the servants of the keep as to the activities of their lord, but aside from a single girl bringing a pitcher of water and a washing cloth, they seemed to be keeping well clear of the new arrivals.  It made him uneasy, made him feel like a prisoner, even surrounded by his own armed men, even with the king’s seal on the letter in his pocket. 

He took the letter out, and straightened the parchment.  Rhaegar’s seal, but not his words.  Three Queens – two Queens and a sorceress – and Tywin Lannister, Hand of the King once more.  They’d taken the chain from Jon’s neck and given it once more to a man who’d sat out half the Rebellion while good men bled and died, while Rhaegar sacrificed everything to save the realm.  _King Rhaegar made me Hand._   It had been the proudest day of his life.  _King Rhaegar made me his Hand, and as soon as he’s gone –_

He was startled up from his thoughts by a hearty knock on the door.

“Lucos.”  Jon nodded in his squire’s direction, trying to unclench his fists.  The boy was halfway to the door when it was pushed open.  Jon’s sword was hung on the wall, in deference to his host’s supposed protection, but he had a dagger on his hip, his hand flying to it as he jolted to his feet.

“Connington!”

Jon’s hand relaxed.  “Brynden!  As I live and breathe!”

His hand met the Blackfish’s in a soldier’s handclasp.  “What brings you here?”

Brynden Tully let out a deep sigh.  “Same as yourself, I imagine.”

_Edmure Tully._ Jon slowly released the Blackfish’s hand, trying to determine his next move.  Edmure Tully was likely here, then, with one of his Stark goodbrothers.  Neither old Lord Hoster nor Ser Brynden was likely to take well to that.  They’d learned their lesson in the last rebellion, and seen more of Rheagar’s mercy than any other House in the realm.  Hoster’s good-son Lord Arryn had lost his head, after all, the Baratheons a traitor dead and another at the wall, and Lord Stark couldn’t even marry off his heir without the king’s approval.  What had Lord Hoster lost, that his spoiled son wanted revenge?

But discussing this with the Blackfish would take careful handling. _Family, Duty, Honor._ Ser Brynden had likely been sent to drag his nephew back by the ear, but he wasn’t going to share the bitter details with King Rhaegar’s right hand, friend or no.

Jon glanced over at his right arm, where he still wore the now rather drenched bit of red silk that Princess Rhaenys had given as her favor.  It sent his mind down a short trail of thoughts, from the Princess to her dwarf, and his mouth, finally, to a tilted smile.

“Ser Edmure,” said Jon, “have you tried this Arbor Gold?”

-

By the time the hunters returned, Jon and the Blackfish had discussed old wars, dead fools, bandits in the Rainwood, bandits on the King’s Road, a hypothetical fight between said bandits, and the need for more wine.  The Blackfish had done a tremendous impression of his own dive into the ocean at the siege of Pyke, and then a rather poorer one of Jon falling out of one of the skiffs.  Jon had shot back with his own version of the dive – _“this water is salty!  Warrior’s fucking balls, what is wrong with this place!” –_ and then the Blackfish had shot back, and all along, outside, the sky had darkened.  There’d only been one reference to “my fool of a nephew,” but all the same that was more than Jon would have gotten had they spent the day sober.

He was congratulating himself on the success of the plan when a young knight arrived at the door and informed him that Lord Renly would see him now.

Jon and the Blackfish shared a look.

But he wasn’t… well.  He was drunk, a bit, but he was walking steadily and without vomiting.  Another hour and a bit of water and he’d be fine. 

_I am here on behalf of the King.  I will not let him down._

-

The young knight wore Baratheon colors, black and gold, but instead of the stag his tabard bore a ship in full sail.  Jon narrowed his eyes.  It wasn’t a house he’d seen before.  Was Lord Renly gathering hedge knights?  And the colors – he supposed the boy was of an age to be one of the Traitor’s bastards, but he was short-statured with sandy brown hair and sharp amber eyes.

Then they reached the Great Hall, and Jon’s questions multiplied.  The hall was hung with banners, most freshly woven and stitched by the look of them.  Fully half were black on gold or gold on black, bearing lightning bolts or tree stumps or birds.  Another ship, too, this one gold on a black sea.  Young men in bright clothes and new-stitched cloaks filled the hall, laughing and eating and throwing dice. 

Reachmen – he recognized a few of the banners, and the gold rose on black was almost certainly a Tyrell vassal – or perhaps Ser Loras himself, being a romantic young fool. 

What he didn’t see were Northmen.

No furs.  No running wolves in gray and white.  None of the party that the Princess had assured him were present.  Jon stood silent, uneasy, his eyes still scanning the hall.

“Ah!  Lord Connington!”

Lord Renly was resplendent in cloth of gold, with an ornamental gorget at his throat with a stag picked on upon it in jet and obsidian.  He wore his long black hair loose, with a thin golden circlet on his head that just skirted being a crown.  He was also smiling, but even with the wine in him, Jon could see that it didn’t reach his eyes.

Lord Renly thumped him heartily on the shoulder, and Jon fought not to flinch back.  He squared his shoulders, and looked Lord Renly squarely in the eyes.

“I have come in the name of King Rhaegar to investigate reports – “

“Hear that, lads!”  Renly turned away.  “He’s come to investigate our feast!”  A rich, bubbling laugh.

Jon seethed.

“In the name of the King,” he repeated.  “I – “

Renly threw one perfumed arm around him.  “Come, Lord Connington.  We’ll talk business later.  Tonight, you enjoy the hospitality of Storm’s End.”

Jon found himself at the high table, his swordhand clenched tight enough around a serving knife to bend it.  None of his men were in the hall.  His eyes darted wildly until he saw the Blackfish, at least – the Blackfish, and no Edmure Tully.

Ser Loras Tyrell, his arm bound up from what looked like a recent injury, was seated on Lord Renly’s other side.  _That’s something, at least._ But when he caught Tyrell’s eye, the boy didn’t even try to hide his scornful glare.

Jon Connington sank back into his seat.

Something here was very badly wrong.


	7. Tyrion II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for child death.
> 
> (Also, went back and did a minor edit in the Prologue to keep better track o& which Kingsguard are where.)

It had not been a good day.

But everything did always seem slightly _better_ at Chataya’s.  The air was sweeter, the wine richer, the women prettier.  It was the happiest pleasure house Tyrion had ever been to, and he’d seen a fair few. 

Alayaya curled up next to him, chin in her hands, eyes sparkling.  It wasn’t as though she was his _friend,_ exactly, because even he knew you didn’t pay friends for the privilege.  And she wasn’t his mistress, because that implied a whole host of other things he didn’t have the time for.  But they lingered in bed together, and he knew what she sounded like when she _really_ laughed, an infectious snorting sound nothing like the graceful lady’s giggle she’d used on him at first.

“No,” she continued.  “That’s really what he told Mother.”

Now Tyrion laughed, a happy drunk sound from somewhere deep in his chest.  “Does _his_ mother know about the proposal?”

She snorted again.  “ _I will save you from this den of sin and iniquity, my pearl!”_   She flopped over onto her back to get another goblet of wine from the table.  “Sin!  There are Westerosi women aplenty in the _whorehouses_ who would love a foolish little lord to save them.  Let him babble about his Seven to them.  Mother said –“ and she began to laugh, and Tyrion with her.  “Mother said – “

“Lord Lannister!”

Tyrion froze.  Beside him, Alayaya jumped, and then leant over his body to glare at her mother.  Under normal circumstances he’d appreciate the view, but beside Chataya in the doorframe was his brother.  Tyrion pulled a silk sheet over himself and scowled.

“What do you want, Jaime?”

The women left the room, Chataya picking up the purse of gold from where he’d left it on the table, Alayaya giving him a sympathetic look and an only slightly mocking wave.  Jaime stood beside the bed, looking remarkably comfortable in a pleasure house for one of the only two men in the Guard who respected his vows.

Well.  Respected them now.  But Tyrion had been well out of that mess, thank the gods.

Jaime picked up Tyrion’s breeches and tossed them at his face.  “Get dressed.  We’re taking Prince Viserys hawking.”

Tyrion focused his scowl on Jaime’s right shoulder, wondering if he could get it to burst into flames.  “We?”

“It was your idea.”

“No,” said Tyrion.  “ _Prince Viserys poisoned Prince Aegon,_ yes, that was my idea.  I don’t recall saying anything about _hawking.”_

He had hated hawking, with a burning passion, ever since it had dawned on him at eleven years old that they were taking him out hawking out of _pity,_ because surely he’d never be able to hunt.  He’d spent two years after that reworking his saddle and learning to shoot a crossbow.  Jaime had _helped,_ for the Seven’s sake! 

“We need him out of the keep, somewhere private, and a hunting trip would take too long.  To say nothing of what would happen if he got it into his head we were setting him up for an ‘accident.’” 

Tyrion fell back, putting a hand over his eyes.  It made sense.  And, if you got right down to it… well.  Despite the best efforts of Dayne and the Queens, Jaime had still spent half of yesterday with their father.  Tyrion had been expecting a temporary return to the “throwing things at the wall” stage of that relationship; seeing Jaime, if not happy, at least determined to distract himself, could only be a good thing.

Tyrion was willing to swallow a few old grudges for that.

-

They returned back to the Red Keep through a tunnel in Chataya’s antechamber.  It looked newer than most, lined with bricks whose mortar was only starting to chip away. 

“How _exactly_ did you know about this?”

“Princess Daenerys.”  Jaime did not elaborate further – not on that point, at least.  “It leads to the Tower of the Hand, and I only wonder if he built it before our lady mother died or after.”  He’s taking longer and longer steps now, the sounds of his boots harsh on the hard-packed floor.  Tyrion jogs to keep up.

“He wants me to make decisions about the Westerlands.  About justice, about taxes, about I don’t know what rot.  I told him to give them to you, and he looked as though he was doing me some grand favor by pretending he hadn’t heard.  He wants me to marry one of Stark’s daughters.  Not even – it wasn’t even a bloody offer.  I’m to resign from the Kingsguard and marry some barely-flowered child and father him nice little Lannister heirs, and he says it like he’s giving me a gift, like he’s setting out just how the world is going to be, like it doesn’t even matter – “

Jaime stopped suddenly, one fist slamming into the wall.  He still stood there, breathing heavily, as Tyrion caught up with him.  Tyrion paused for a moment, then put the lantern down to lay a hopefully-soothing hand on his brother’s hip.

“Cersei forgave him –“

Jaime whirled.  “Say her name again, and I’ll tell father you’ve been giving Mother’s jewelry to whores.”

Tyrion met his brother’s shadowed gaze.  “First of all, they were Princess Rhaenys’ earrings – “ He paused, and took a breath, then another.  Fighting here would take them nowhere good.  “I’m sorry,” he offered instead.  “That was… out of line.”  It hurt to be reminded, still, that for all Jaime loved him, Cersei came first.  The sister who had tormented him for years, who neither of them had _seen_ in years, and still she held that kind of power.

Jaime turned, again, and continued up the tunnel.  Tyrion followed.

-

On his twelfth nameday, Queen Elia had graciously granted him a kestrel.    He had hawked in the years since only when it couldn’t be avoided, but the mews still kept him in kestrels: small and hostile creatures, and none so much as the latest one.

Ladyjeyne glared at Tyrion.  Admittedly, she was hooded, but Tyrion was no fool.  He knew exactly what was going on underneath that leather mask.  She’d tried to take his nose off seven months ago, when Queen Elia had decided that a day of hawking was exactly what Queen Lyanna needed and no one had had the heart to gainsay her.  Ladyjeyne had brought him most of a rat, which he had declined to contribute to the party pile.

This time, at least, he was able to mount without incident.  The royal falconer passed Ladyjeyne up to him, and Tyrion held her as far away from his body as it was possible without unbalancing.  Jaime’s own white-bellied falcon seemed to be causing him no such trouble; she sat calmly in her hood and jesses.

Prince Viserys met them at the gate, two common guards by his side.  Tyrion eyed them warily.  The Prince himself was splendidly dressed in crimson, with a white gyrfalcon on his wrist and a small smirk on his face.  They rode only to the fields at the edge of the Kingswood; they’d make it back before dark unless something went very badly wrong indeed.

The guards trailed behind the royal party, with the royal falconer and his boys; every time they tried to close the gap, Jaime glared at them as if professionally insulted, and they reined their horses in.  Prince Viserys was silent. 

The sun was merciless.  Tyrion shifted in his saddle, trying to hold Ladyjeyne as still as possible.  It was a relief when the falconer’s boys went out to beat the bushes and he could finally send her up.  The Prince’s gyrfalcon followed, and finally Jaime’s bird.  His brother twisted around in his saddle to look at the trailing guards, and finally spoke.

“Your Grace.”

“Ser Jaime.” 

Tyrion was behind them both.  He could see the bored expression on the Prince’s face, the way Jaime’s hands were white knuckled on his reins. That was the danger of having spent almost two decades on the Kingsguard; even his brother didn’t much like to gainsay a Targaryen.  Time to step in.

“That was a very stupid thing you did last week, you know.”

Jaime jolted back so hard that his horse balked.  The Prince looked at Tyrion as though he were a bit of unexpected dog shit on the bottom of his boot. 

“Excuse me, dwarf?”

“Sending a serving girl to poison the heir to the throne?  Your own nephew?  In all honesty, your Grace, I’m –”

“I could have you hanged for this!”

“Yes, your Grace.”  The words were directed at the Prince, but Jaime’s eyes were boring into Tyrion’s, his stallion pawing nervously beneath him.  “You could.”  Tyrion tried to look suitably contrite, but _someone_ had needed to say something, and it wasn’t as though Jaime had never talked back to a Targaryen.  Finally, Jaime looked away.

“Your Grace, Tyrion’s words were immoderate, but he speaks out of loyalty to your brother.  I pray you forgive him.”

Tyrion nearly snorted.  Jaime Lannister made a truly terrible sycophant.

Even Prince Viserys seemed to see it.  “Indeed,” he said, and nothing else.  Tyrion shifted awkwardly in his saddle.

“But, your Grace,” said Jaime, suddenly sounding a great deal more like himself, “my brother is also not alone.”

Viserys jerked his stallion’s head to one side with a forceful pull on the reins, then kicked him sharply into a few steps of a trot, cutting across the path and in front of Jaime before stopping.  His head was tossed back proudly, his back straight.  “Traitors, then?”  There was courage in it – the kind of courage, thought Tyrion, that could only come from terror.

“Never.”  Jaime’s voice cut across it all.  Tyrion couldn’t see his face, only the gleaming white armor.  “ _Never._ But I fear, your Grace, that you are surrounded by them all the same.  Let me lay a possibility before you – “

“Oh?”

“A possibility before you.  There are fools in this court, your Grace, and they’ve been telling you tales.  Tales that your brother is a madman.  Tales that he will never return.  Tales, perhaps, that the crown should go to the _true_ Targaryen, the dragon free of a kinslayer’s line, of _tainted_ Dornish blood.”  There was a faint snarl behind the last words.  Tyrion hoped he was the only one who heard it. 

“People such as these, Prince Viserys, are not your friends.  They will not save your dynasty, they will not put you on your brother’s throne.  All they will leave is a kingdom in tatters.”

Jaime paused for breath.  Evidently he hadn’t been silent earlier because he’d been waiting for Tyrion to speak.  He’d been silent rehearsing this little speech.  And Tyrion was there as what – a witness?  Because Jaime had known he’d needle at the Prince in a way that a man in a white cloak couldn’t?  Revenge for spending the last few days hiding at brothels?

The returning speck of Ladyjeyne, high in the sky, certainly gave credence to the _last_ theory.  Tyrion let out a breath, and shifted in his saddle.  He could see the falconer’s boys returning through gaps in the thin trees.

“What do you want, Ser Jaime?”  Prince Viserys’ voice was high and cold.

“I want to keep you safe, your Grace.  I want to keep your brother safe.  I want to keep your nephew safe, and before you run back to whoever’s been pouring poison in your ear – “ Jaime’s shoulders shook, and he visibly calmed himself.  “This is no concern of yours, of course, your Grace.  But if Prince Aegon dies, I swear on your mother’s grave that I will run his murderer through myself.”

-

“Brilliant oratory, brother.  Simply brilliant.”  Tyrion took another swig of wine.  They’d made it back to the Red Keep in a silent, sullen line of riders.  The Prince hadn’t called for either of them to be beheaded, which was a good sign, and Ladyjeyne had both brought him a bird _and_ let him take it from her.  It all could have gone worse.  “Although, I will note, we still have no idea if he’s guilty.”

Jaime acknowledged his scowl with a wave of his hand.  “He sent the girl.  You didn’t see his face.”

“I did, actually.  It looked like a princeling having a strop.  I don’t recall seeing ‘I did it, it was me!’ written across his forehead.”

This time Jaime ignored him.  “And he must have been talking to Varys.  Lady Brienne and I –“

“Oh?”  Tyrion cocked his head, then slumped back down in his seat.  “You’re trying to distract me, I see.  It’s not working.”

“I – what?”

“I ask ‘when did you start calling her Lady Brienne?’.  You fake a flush and a stammer and deny the whole affair.  I ask if Father should look East instead of North if he wants to tempt you with a bride –“

“So it _is_ working.”

Tyrion glared, and reached again for the wine.

-

He spent most of the afternoon asleep, drifting off in a soft, wine-tinged haze.  It felt as though he hadn’t slept in weeks, and he was none too pleased to be awoken by someone jabbing him in the back.

Rolling over and seeing Princess Rhaenys was a shock.

She wasn’t _in_ his bed, at least.  She stood beside it in the dim evening light, wearing a slightly smug expression and a hooded gray cloak, one hand outstretched to poke at him again when he didn’t seem inclined to move.  She was also _alone._

“Oh, Teora’s in my bed with the covers drawn,” she explained.  “Dany’s poor maidens, they’re so bored with no trouble to get in to.”

Tyrion stared at her, a bit gobsmacked.  Rhaenys guarded her reputation with the same care that she organized her bookshelves.  She approached dances and feasts like a tactician did a battlefield – _one dance with Lord Dayne, no more than two with Ser Garlan…_ Was someone dead?

“No,” said Rhaenys.  “Not yet.  I need someone who knows the tunnels.”

-

That, Tyrion could help her with.  They skulked through the halls to the nearest entrance he knew of – Jaime had let him pick new chambers a few times over the years, and he’d picked them with care.  Rhaenys pulled a punched-iron lantern from a small sack.  Tyrion leant over to see what else was inside: chalk, spare candles, two water jugs, several raisin clumps, and a bit of cheese.  The Princess was well-prepared, though he wondered if he should be insulted.

“If I get us that lost, your Grace, you hereby have permission to eat _me.”_

“It’s best to be prepared.”

They emerged into an empty hallway, and then descended a hidden flight of stairs.  Eventually, they reached Varys’ room.  Tyrion was not surprised to see that Rhaenys had the key, but he was slightly concerned at the lack of guards.  Still, they’d made it, and so far he hadn’t even had to admit how poorly he knew the tunnels in this end of the palace.

That, he suspected, looking down into the gloom, would come later.

-

They followed the hidden stairs down from Varys’ room, into the gloom of a rounder, wider tunnel.  Paving stones quickly gave way to mud.  Behind him, the Princess was silent but for her footsteps.  The first joining tunnel they came to was collapsed, and, from the grime on it, had been that way for years if not decades.  Tyrion had heard rumors that there were places beneath the Keep where green flames still burned. 

They finally came to a place where three tunnels met, not quite a crossroads.  One of them, the only one Tyrion thought he recognized, came down at a strange angle, and was clearly the work of a different builder.  The rest of them, the old warren they were in now, were Maegor’s if they were anyone’s.  Tyrion, as a rule, did not believe in ghosts, but he would be happier right now to be back in his bed.  This was not a place to be dragging the king’s daughter.

Rhaenys carefully marked one wall with the chalk, to show the way they’d came.  Amidst the grime and lanternlight, it seemed to glow.  “Which way now?”

Tyrion lowered his lantern to look at the ground.  It had sunken in where the tunnels met, leaving a patch of mud that never quite dried.  There were footprints in it, that much he could see immediately.  Most of them belonged to rats.  Some of them didn’t.

There were heavy dragmarks in the mud leading into the leftmost tunnel.  Tyrion pointed at them wordlessly, and Rhaenys leant over him and hissed, then pointed, sharply, off into the gloom.  Tyrion moved closer, shoving her lantern aside.  A single clear footprint, thin and small, in slippers or sandals rather than boots.

“A child?”

Tyrion narrowed his eyes.  A child, a short woman, a dancing dwarf.  Most of the women in the palace wore slippers.  The Red Queen wore golden sandals with jewels and fringe, but she was taller than most men, and her feet dainty only in comparison.  But children – that led down a dark road in his mind.  A very dark road.

Princess Rhaenys marked the wall again as they headed down the new passageway, in silence.  This time she walked ahead of Tyrion, but slowly, carefully, stopping every three feet to look down again.  Tyrion followed at a snail’s pace.  The mud was thicker here, and it dragged at his boots.

“Up ahead.”  The Princess raised her lantern, and Tyrion squinted off into the dark.  “There’s some sort of chamber.”

She hurried, now, slinging her bag over her shoulder and holding up her skirts with her free hand.  Her lantern swung from side to side, and Tyrion kept his eyes glued to it as he struggled after her.  For one, terrifying moment, the light vanished entirely.

And then she screamed.

Tyrion flung himself down the passageway.  He had a knife in his boot, for all the good that would do – perhaps he’d earn a spot in the Casterly crypts if he went down fighting.

“Your Grace –“

“…Tyrion…”  She had her arms wrapped around her ribs, breathing raggedly.  Her lantern was on the floor in front of her, the door broken and the candle spilling out, its flame sputtering and sending shadows dancing across the chamber.

Across the bodies.

Some of them were little more than bones already, bits and pieces dragged away by scavengers, others stiffened and sunken and swollen with the smell of rot.  Tyrion swallowed down vomit, as well as a remark about whether Rhaenys had done the same.  This was not the time.

“They were children,” said Rhaenys, faintly.  “Children.”

Tyrion steeled himself, kneeling down by the nearest intact corpse and wrenching open its mouth.  “No,” he said, softly.  “They were birds.”

Varys’ birds.  He shuddered. “They were killed, and dragged here.”

He could see Rhaenys body shift as she took the opening.  “Not… not all at the same time.”  Her voice fought for calm.

Tyrion brought his lantern closer.  _Just a body.  Just meat._ He clenched his free fist until it shook.  “I don’t – “

Something clattered in the shadows past Rhaenys.  Tyrion jumped, whirling, his hand colliding with something he endeavored not to name, and the sound came again. Rhaenys stepped forwards, staring off into the darkness, at something Tyrion couldn’t see.

“It’s all right.”

Tyrion picked his way around the bodies as quickly as possible.  _Maid and Mother, let it be a cat._

“We’re not going to hurt you.”  She stretched out one hand.

As Tyrion barreled up behind her, lantern swinging, he caught a glimpse of a small, pale face.  Its eyes widened, and a horrible, hoarse noise came from its throat, the rattle of a man on his deathbed.  It turned and scrambled up back into the darkness.

“Tyrion!”

“What –“ But he knew what it had been.  A survivor.  A survivor or a ghost, and he did not believe in ghosts, even down here in the darkness among a pile of murdered children, rot thickening the air.  He did _not._

“A witness,” he said, instead, once he’d caught his breath.  “If we could catch him.”  He peered up at the pile of rocks it had climbed.  There were gaps, and likely more tunnels behind, but he didn’t much fancy squeezing his way through.

“Exactly,” said Rhaenys.  “A survivor.”  She went to retrieve her lantern and pack, stepping carefully.  Tyrion could hear the prayers she was whispering under her breath. 

He watched her lay out the raisins, cheese, and one of the wineskins.   Her hands were still shaking.  Tyrion himself could do with a stiff drink.

“Admittedly,” he said, “A witness without a tongue.”

Rhaenys looked at him, eyes narrowed.  “We can work with that.”  She took in a long, steadying breath.  “No one can know about this.  No one but my mother.”

“My brother?”

The Princess shook her head.  “Not until we’ve caught the poor thing.  _No one.”_

She didn’t ask for his word.  It was just as well.  He wasn’t sure he’d be able to keep it.

-

They made it back, silently, to the main floors of the Keep.  In muddy shoes and stained cloaks, they passed well enough for servants, but the Princess flagged down the first knight of the Kingsguard she saw – Ser Daemon, who bowed to her and, for once, asked no questions.

“Take me to my mother.”

Tyrion followed along, hoping he wouldn’t be asked to explain his presence.  He owed Queen Elia a great deal, and suspected that leading her daughter alone down corpse-infested tunnels was not the best way to keep her trust. 

Ser Daemon took them to Queen Lyanna’s chambers, to Rhaenys’ poorly hidden impatience.  Queen Elia could well be spending the night in them, which made speaking to her alone without upsetting Queen Lyanna a much more difficult prospect.  And an upset Lyanna Stark could do serious damage.

Poor bastard.  She’d finally happy over the past few years, as far as Tyrion knew.  Close to it, at least.  She’d smile, wild and bright, not merely beautiful but infectious, alive.  And then the Prince had run for the Wall.

Tyrion didn’t expect to ever have children – that would have required either a marriage or a serious slip up with someone’s moon tea, and between his father’s disdain and Chataya’s careful watch on her girls, both seemed equally unlikely – but he wasn’t sure he would, given the choice.  It seemed a recipe for pain.

Lyanna’s voice cut through the walls as they approached the door, high and boiling with rage.  Ser Daemon pushed it open hesitantly. 

“The Princess Rhaenys?”

The rooms occupants ignored them.  Elia was half risen from a chair.  And there was Jaime, hands open and raised, as Lyanna leant over a table at him, her eyes gray flint.

“Then tell me, _Ser,_ just why your father is trying to murder my son!” 

A recipe for pain, indeed.


	8. Connington II

The feast became no more pleasant, and Lord Renly no more informative, as the night wore on.  Jon nursed a goblet of wine, and refused as much food as he politely could.  Flaky, spice-covered salmon.  Strawberries in honey.  A fresh-killed boar that Lord Renly carved himself with his spotless sword, while men cheered him as though he was killing a foe.  It all tasted like dust.

Finally, as the sounds of _The Bear and the Maiden Fair_ heralded the start of the dancing, Jon pled a headache and managed to escape.  _Most_ of his men followed.  All of _his_ men, at any rate.  Hollard could stay and drink himself to sleep, and good riddance.

Jon reached his room, and flung himself down on a cushion with some violence.  He could hear old Yason organizing the men-at-arms in the corridor, his growl of a voice solid and familiar.  Lucos crept nervously into the room, slightly unsteady on his feet, and began attempting to remove Jon’s cape.  Jon waved him away.

“I can do my own bloody buckles.  I’m not half as drunk as you are.”

Lucos flushed.  “…Sorry, ser.”

 

Jon grunted.

Even with the wine, sleep didn’t come easily.  He lay on the featherbed and stared up at the gloom of an embroidered canopy.  Storm’s End was as beautiful as it had always been.

He hadn’t wanted the castle, not truly.  And he hadn’t wanted the Stormlands – not for himself, at any rate.  Rhaegar had shown mercy, Rhaegar had shown loyalty to the memories of Lord Steffon and Lord Orys.  It had been the right decision at the time.  He could hardly have predicted Lord Renly’s base ingratitude, not when he’d brought him to court and treated him like his own brother.  Cursed Baratheons.  Bastard blood and traitors all.

His head hurt.

-

He stumbled out of bed the next morning feeling barely rested.  Kettleblack and Yason herded his men into the antechamber, even rustling out Hollard from gods-knew-where he’d landed last night.  Jon straightened, swallowing the last crust of bread and looking the party over.

“So,” he said.  “Did anyone learn anything last night?”  He looked at his men-at-arms in particular.  The hall last night had barely had room for all its knights and lordlings, and he wasn’t sure where the commonfolk had been sent to eat.  If it was with Storm’s Ends’ own soldiers, as he hoped, then they’d likely learned a great deal more from Renly’s men than he had from the lord himself. 

Jon tapped his fingers on his leg.  _It would have been difficult for them not to._

“There were no Northmen in the hall,” said Kettleblack, his brows beetling.  “I had a hedgeknight from the Riverlands at my table, but the old bastard had taken a few too many falls at the jousts.  Kept calling me by my father’s name and asking after his horse.”  He spat off to the side.  “Old men, boys, and smallfolk.  If this is his rebellion, there’ll be one less stag in Westeros by winter.”

He puffed himself up like a rooster as he spoke.  Jon ignored him, and looked at his own men.  “No Northmen?”

A few shook their heads, but one, a gangly, freckled boy Jon half recognized as the steward’s youngest son, opened his mouth to speak.  “But there were, m’lord.”  He looked at the men to the left and right of him for backup.  “Not – not Northern lords, but there were Northmen.  Remember them, Marl?”

Marl, older and bearded and the second-best archer Jon had at the keep, nodded slowly.  “Hard not to.” 

Jon gestured for him to continue.  “Soldiers?”

“Savages, more like.  Those as weren’t in furs were in leather and plaid.  Ate like they thought they’d never see a meal again.”

A stone settled in Jon’s belly.  _Savages._ Wildlings.  Renly’s brother at the Wall.

He fought to calm his racing mind.  “Did you speak to them?”

“No, m’lord.” 

“Marl doesn’t speak to anyone,” the steward’s boy piped in.  “I did, though.  M’lord.  Made a toast to the Griffin, and they made one to a bucket, and then to more ale.  I think one of them was a woman.”

Jon raked a hand through his hair.  “Thank you.”

He kept an honor guard of four men in the hallway, and sent Marl and the steward’s boy off with the last of the Arbor Gold he’d shared with the Blackfish, in the hopes they might be able to reconnect with their Northern table partners.  Yason and the rest of his men were to train with the Storm’s End garrison, and see what else they could overhear.  Kettleblack and Hollard could try to do the same with the knights, and Lucos with the serving maids and squires.

Lord Renly already knew he was under suspicion, that much was clear.  He knew that Jon would send out spies, at least such spies as he possessed.  He didn’t have to worry overmuch about subtlety.

-

He spent the day wandering the halls, telling one servant he was looking for the library, the next the tallest tower, the next the crypts.  Most of them pointed him off in what he presumed were the right directions, bowing their heads to hide their faces from him.  One plump woman, with graying dark hair and a fine black dress, insisted on taking him to see the seamstresses herself when he showed her the hole he’d ripped in his jerkin.

Her voice was bubbly and cheerful.  Her eyes were not as kind.

“You come from the king, m’lord?”

“It is my honor to do so, yes.”  He looked at her out of the corner of his eye, catching the tension in her posture. 

She shook her head and clucked her tongue.  “Young men and their _honor_.”

He tilted his head.  “I daresay I’m a few years older than you, good lady.”  She must have been wife to one of Renly’s newmade knights, acting like a servant but dressed in new broadcloth and a silver chain.  A younger woman would have been flaunting it, dressing in silks and feathers like she was from the Summer Isles. 

“A gallant compliment, Lord Connington.”  There was not a hint of flirtation in her tone.  “Merys and Ella ought to be just up these stairs.  They’ll set you right.”  She walked ahead of him as she spoke, and rapped on the closed door.

It opened in a flash of light and voices.  Jon jumped back, and then steadied, cursing himself.  No assassins.  Women armed with scissors and needles, smiling to see his guide and peering around her to see what lord she’d brought them.

“Marya, dear!  It’s so good to –“

“She’s Lady Marya now, don’t you forget.”  A woman with iron gray hair and sharp dark eyes, who reminded him unaccountably of a long-dead aunt.

“She’s been Lady Marya for fifteen years, or have –“  This woman, white-haired and even older than the last, clamped her jaw shut upon spotting Jon.  “We have a guest, I see.”

“My jerkin,” said Jon, quickly.  He might have actually stumbled across something this time.  _Fifteen years._ Sixteen, really, since “Lord” Stannis had been sent to the Wall.  A few of his knights had gone with him, some fool smuggler who’d run the wrong blockade, two or three of his men at arms.  Whose wife had she been, then?  Was one of Stannis’ survivors in the castle even now?

But he gained no more answers from the seamstresses.  _Lady_ Marya had vanished the instant he turned his back, and the other women remained resolutely silent, though two of the younger girls kept glaring at him when they thought he was looking away.

He was able to find his way back to his chambers after only half an hour of searching, which, considering how much of Storm’s End he’d wandered through today, felt like an accomplishment.  His heart was pounding, his breath not quite settled – it felt like the quiet space before a battle.  He was close to something.  He could feel it.

He nodded to his guards, and walked into his chambers.

A stranger rose awkwardly from one of the chairs, one fist white knuckled on the chairback, favoring his entire left side.  His eyes were flinty, his face flushed, and even at this distance Jon could see the dagger strapped to his belt, and the hand flinching towards it.

_Benjen Stark._

-

“Lord Connington.”  Stark’s grimace of pain might have started as a smile.  “Jon Connington of Griffin’s Roost.  Once Hand of the King.” He was putting no weight now on his left leg, and his right arm, gripping the chair, was beginning to tremble. 

He was clearly wounded.  Jon knew he ought to gesture for him to sit down.  But an armed man, brother to the Rebel Wolf and Rhaegar’s second Queen alike, had invaded his quarters, and Jon did not intend to let his guard down for an instant. 

“How is my sister, Lord Connington?”  Stark leant forwards, wincing.  “How is my nephew?”  The last sentence was spat out, hatred infusing every word.

Jon’s shoulders tensed.  So this was why Queen Lyanna so rarely returned to Winterfell.  He… He did not love Queen Lyanna, he could admit that to himself.  No more than he could love any woman who held a piece of Rhaegar’s heart.  A better man, he knew, would have loved her for Rhaegar’s sake, for the times she made him smile, the times she made him sing.  But it had cost him dear, a few times, trying to be a better man.  Jon could only be the man he was.

He did not hate Lyanna’s son.  Prince Jon had been a fool to run to the Wall, but most lads were fools at his age, and at least he’d run to defend the realm and not to sell his sword to mercenary bands or pirates.  The greatest wrong the Prince had ever done Jon Connington was a few bruises from sparring practice.  What wrong could the child have done Benjen Stark, other than dare to be born?

Jon’s lips drew back in a scowl, and he knew that Stark could see it.  “Her Grace is well.”  He clenched his fists.  “Prince Jon has taken his vows at the Wall.”

“Oh?  Is that the story you’re telling these days?”  Stark clung to the chairback, his feet shifting, wounded and ready to pounce.  “Or is it the one they’re telling you?”

“Excuse me?”  Jon’s hand was resting on the hilt of his own dagger now, without conscious thought.   He heard the doorway crack open behind him, and the reassuring sound of Yason’s hobnailed boots as the guards peered in at the scene.

“Your King Rhaegar murdered my nephew, _Lord Connington._   A boy of fifteen.  An honest boy, a kind one.  His own – ”  Stark fought to catch his breath.  “Murdered him. Sacrificed him, some say, on the urging of a foreign priestess.  You’re looking for answers?  I have come South to find my sister, and bring her home.  Bring her home, as we should have done sixteen years ago.”

Jon stood gobsmacked for only a moment, reassessing every assumption he’d just made.  Prince Jon, _dead?_   A lie, of course.  But from whose tongue? “And Lord Renly’s army?”

“That is Lord Renly’s concern,” said Stark.  “I have enough of my own.”  He rose further, and pulled a rough walking stick from where he had concealed it behind the chair, wincing as he shifted his weight.  “If you wish to take me to the Red Keep – take me, like they took my father, like they took my brother – then I will let you, if you swear on whatever honor Rhaegar’s man could possess to let me see my sister alone before I die.”

Jon found his voice.  “You need not come as a prisoner. Her Grace would be pleased to see you.  And to tell you the truth.”

Gray eyes held his own for a long moment. Then Benjen Stark turned, and limped from the room.


End file.
